


We Are Not Legends Yet

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Blood, Ghosts, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Meet the Family, Mythology - Freeform, Q's Army of Cats, Slow Build, Stabbing, Suicide Attempt, Supernatural Elements, Temporary Character Death, Underworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 22:58:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 78,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts when Q accidentally makes 007 immortal.</p><p>Things only get more complicated from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I: The Land of the Living

**Author's Note:**

> Art by the wonderful [johanirae](http://johanirae.tumblr.com/) and [allyearefallen](http://allyearefallen.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Extensive notes, including further links, at the end.

He never meant to do it. 

Bond might not believe him and Eve might smile knowingly and M might raise his eyebrows appraisingly and all the rest, but Q knows that he didn’t mean it. 

At least, not the way it turned out.

\----------

Once upon a time, Q was alarmed by the sounds of gunshots; hurried in the opposite direction from the rumble and crack of the destruction of private property; shivered at the very idea of murder.

Admittedly it wasn’t a very large shiver. Q might have blended in a bit better, way back when, but he’s never exactly been normal.

The point is, as he listens to the audio representation of 007’s latest rampage-disguised-as-a-mission, he finds himself stifling a yawn and wondering idly about whether Q Branch should order in Chinese or Indian tonight.

“Q!” 007’s voice cuts through this daydreaming reverie and Q snaps back to sharply-honed attention, adjusting his glasses a little guiltily. 

“On your left.” Thank God the package has a tracker on it: 007’s in a blind zone, the kind Q can’t believe still exist in cities these days, and Q’s left with watching blipping flashing lights on a digital map as if they’re living in the eighties. (Maybe he should go hack the Pentagon again, just for full historical accuracy.) He wonders if it would make it any more bearable to insert some Pacman animation. Or to just abuse his power and privileges to insert some sort of CCTV – just for him, of course – pretty much everywhere his agents could possibly go, because it’s not like he’s allowed to ignore their calls but he’s not entirely sure how this helps.

(Unfortunately M just seems amused by the suggestion of CCTV in the Tube tunnels.)

Attempting to cover all of 007’s routes might be an exercise in futility though, he admits. No matter what Q does with regard to borrowing satellites and mobile phones, a clear visual on his shenanigans often dissolves into a mere pipe dream. And yes, he will refer to them as ‘shenanigans’. When the subject in question pulls off this many stunts where others might, oh, use the door, anything else might sound like an endorsement.

A loud crash rings out. “What was that?”

“Shabby workmanship.” Surely, Q thinks, at some point someone must have had to explain to 007 the concept of accurate reports. He wonders if they felt the abyss of futile despair opening up as they spoke. Still, 007 does have the decency to follow it up with, “We’re in the station tower.”

“Ever the cinematic one,” Q mutters. “Try to pin him down there –the last thing we need is another train-top showdown.”

007 starts to retort with something which is no doubt another variation on ‘don’t tell me how to do my job’, but thankfully Q is saved by the target deciding to take the initiative.

Fist-fights as heard over the comms are, for the most part, a confusing mess. Lots of short gasps and grunts and various other sounds from 007’s comm which under other circumstances would make Q roll his eyes and switch it off. Without a visual, Q has very little idea what’s happening.

Then comes a wet thud, accompanied by the involuntary gasp of suddenly bloody breath. The quality of the comms being as good as it is, there’s no mistaking the sound of a knife punching its way into the stomach.

(Christ, Q can’t even remember not knowing what that sounded like.)

Q didn’t give 007 a knife. Not that that’s all that significant, 007’s perfectly capable of picking up weapons wherever he can find them. From the sounds of things, the fight continues regardless, only now somebody is very obviously ignoring a lot of pain.

A window shatters, and against the background rumble of an express train Q hears  
the sound of a body collapsing to the ground.

“007?”

007’s breath comes heavy and laboured over the comms. Small hitches summon an image of attempts to move, dragging himself forwards when his body screams at the slightest jolt. Then words, no doubt intended cool and collected but escaping as a pained snarl: “Package retrieved.” A gasp. “Well, half of it.”

Something’s wrong. Something’s so very, very wrong. “And the target?”

An animalistic sound, a growling stifling of a curse. “Out the bloody window and onto the train roof.”

With most agents, that might have qualified as explanation enough. That is because most agents don’t have 007’s infamous gung-ho attitude towards the laws of nature and logic. 

Q hates not having eyes in the room; hates having to rely on somebody else to know what’s happening. He learnt his craft in bloody London, as far as he’s concerned everywhere could and (increasingly) _should_ have CCTV, should have eyes he can use, because right now he is bloody blind and there are few things he hates more than _not knowing_. “007, I need a report on your situation.”

There’s a silence which stretches out a little too long, punctuated only by more of those awful plodding breaths. Q fancies he can hear the thought crossing between each member of his branch at his back, the same thought he actively blocks, for all that his subconscious is already there, already knows the truth. It’s funny how the mind can try to fight itself this way. Funny how humans as a species are so specifically wired to both recognise and reject their very reality. Funny how anybody lives for long at all.

“All right,” 007 growls out, as if the notion of obeying is somehow the more hateful option, “something you _might_ understand: SNAFU.”

The sheer incongruity of hearing that in 007’s voice – the acronym lent the spit of anger and significance Q has rarely heard in MMORPGs except from players taking it terrifyingly seriously – actually throws Q off for a moment. Then the full meaning sinks in, particularly with regard to the fact that naturally 007 is trying to undermine any sort of concern. He almost laughs – almost, it’s more of a shaky surprised breath and he’s not entirely what his face attempts to do in order to match it – and informs him, “The technical term is ‘agent down’.”

“Do I sound like I bloody care?” No. He sounds like he’s on the floor and bleeding out.

“Where did he get you?” Q’s seen 007 shrug off gunshots and hypothermia. Surely a mere knife wound should be nothing. (Surely Q isn’t just falling victim to wishful thinking.) 

Presumably 007 tries to move – the idiot – because he lets out an involuntary snarl of pain. Q knows it’s involuntary because there’s no way 007 would ever have let anyone hear it otherwise. (The rest of Q Branch stills, abandoning the very pretence of not listening. Q doesn’t care; is barely aware of anything else, eyes staring unseeing at the map as he imagines what’s happening a thousand miles away.) “Does it matter?”

“It does if you care about the remarkable acidity of stomach acid.” He winces as 007 laughs, not even bothering to pass verbal judgement on Q’s impeccable bedside manner. He can’t help it: that’s all he can think about, descriptions in The Da Vinci Code and missions overseen where he discovered that that was something of an understatement as far as accounts went. When 007 tails off, it’s into a series of hacking coughs, and Q doesn’t need his camera eyes to confirm the blood bubbling out of Bond’s mouth.

“007,” he says, hopefully firmly (it’s not), “you stay with me now.”

“I hardly think that’s your call.”

“The fuck it is.” It slips out before Q can stop it. No doubt in the future he’ll pay for expletives over the comms (again), but he doesn’t care about the future. He cares about what’s happening in this very moment, right now. “You are not dying on me.”

007 laughs – hollow and mocking. Q can feel himself bristling. It sounds like _you’re such a child_ ; sounds like _just try and stop me._

“007,” he repeats, “fuck, Bond, you don’t die like this, you understand?”

“Who says so?”

“I fucking say so!” And yes, he does sound like a child, that’s why the meaning riles him so much. He can feel the anger swelling, at 007 and at himself and at bloody well everything, and it’s the kind of anger that’s hiding something deeper, something that cuts so deeply anything is better than paying attention to it. Maybe he’s never lost an agent in the field before – certainly not like this – but there’s something more than a little primal about the _no_ , about the _not mine_. “007, you listen to me right now!” He slams his hand against the desk, so hard that the echoes bounce around Q Branch and loud and clear down the line to halfway across the world. 

“James Bond, you do not have my _permission_ to die!”

The last word rings out into the silence. Q can hear his own heavy breaths now, just, over his heart pounding in his ears. There’s nothing from the other end of the line, and as he stands there, hand stinging, he feels the eyes of his whole department on his back and, quite suddenly, feels very stupid indeed. 

He lets his shoulders sag and his head fall forward. As quickly as the anger came, it’s gone again, and a bone-deep weariness settles in its place. 

“Q,” he hears 007 murmur, “I didn’t know you cared.” It hardly takes any experience with him to recognise that he’s being mocked. 

The words slip out on instinct. “Fuck you.” Because this is already the most inappropriate agent-quartermaster exchange in history, so he might as well give up at this point. He lets his eyes drift over what the screen _can_ tell him. “Extraction’s en route,” he informs his agent, words suddenly seeming oddly heavy. “Keep breathing for me, 007.”

“I rather got the impression you weren’t giving me a choice.”

“Correct,” Q confirms, trying to fake-smile even though nobody can see it. Perhaps it’s the thought which counts. 

“You know,” 007 says conversationally, with the slight strain which might be from a stab wound and might be because the _idiot_ is trying to move, “I would have thought shouting my name might count as a security risk.”

Q hadn’t even realised. “You say that as if you don’t introduce yourself to everyone you meet. The words ‘secret agent’ clearly mean nothing to you.”

“It makes things simpler.”

Another minute or so until contact, the read-outs reckon. Thank Christ for that: if he has to listen to much more of 007 acting as if everything is fine and he doesn’t sound close enough to death for any distinctions to be fairly moot, Q may put his fist through the computer screen. And then he’d have to pay for it, and spend hours he could be using to, oh, help other agents in the field less inclined towards suicidal escapades fixing all of the wiring and programming so that it runs exactly how he wants it. Not passing any of this on, he instead grumbles, “I wasn’t aware that the idea of espionage was to keep things simple.”

“Well, you’re still new.”

Feeling that he should at least give 007 something to hang on to, Q informs him, “I’ve been working here for five years.” The comms go terrifyingly quiet. “007?” Shit. Shitshitshit, did he collapse? “007, report.” His eyes are wide and his knuckles, only just relaxing, go white.

A laugh comes over the line; an awful, pained laugh, more groan save for the breaks. “I had no idea.”

“You say that as if you haven’t viewed my files.”

“I tried. You have some wonderfully paranoid impediments.”

Q’s smile is shaky and a little crazy, but this time there might be something genuine in it. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Over the comms, he hears approaching helicopter blades; the sound of heavy boots hitting the roof; a cornucopia of medical terminology as, for once in his life, 007 lets them bring him home. (There are a few sarcastic bites, but they’re far more tokenistic than usual. A cat trapped in the corner.)

“Sir?”

Q doesn’t startle because he honestly doesn’t feel like he has the energy. Blearily he blinks around at one of his subordinates. _Davies_ , he recognises, but her Christian name swims away from him. He feels like he’s pulled one of his coding 48-hour days, only to discover the Earl Grey’s all gone. The look in her eyes suggests she agrees, and Q’s not even that good at reading expressions, beyond the basics.

“Why don’t you let us take over? We’re on clean-up anyway.”

Clean-up. Christ, this mission’s a bloody write-off, isn’t it? Worse than Rio. (Except this time they got the package. Q’s struggling to remember that as a plus.)

Again, she must read something in his face, because her expression does this thing where she seems to be trying to comfort him. It’s a little too matronly for him to entirely like it, but he supposes she means well. “It’s alright, sir. Gerty’s already talking to 004, he’s in the area. Remember?”

In the area. If within a three-country radius counts as ‘the area’. Still, he knows his department will do its best. It’s his department, after all. “Right,” he confirms, and he’s about to say something else – piece it together, come up with a strategy, get somebody to _get some bloody eyes down there_ – when he interrupts himself with a sudden wide, ear-cracking yawn.

“Damn, sorry – ”

“No, it’s fine,” she insists – Katy, finally, his brain tells him, _Katy_ – and there’s a definite worried tone to her voice. If he felt like flattering himself, he’d say she sounded scared of him. Probably she is, but he’s only kidding himself if he thinks it’s due to his amazing presence as a leader and a commander – as opposed to, say, having a meltdown in front of his _entire fucking department_ , Jesus Christ, it’s only just sinking in now. “Um, why don’t you, er, just go and have a lie down? I promise we’ll get you if something comes up.” This last comes out all in a confused jumble of a hurry, some sort of protective talisman held before her. 

Q pushes himself away from his desk to tell her that no, he’s fine, if you think he’s going to _have a lie down_ when there’s this cock-up to fix then you have another think coming. Unfortunately, as soon as he lets go of his support, he sways on the spot. He really is quite ridiculously tired, all of a sudden. It’s weird enough to catch him off-guard, to swallow up his comebacks in confusion.

He’ll give them this one, he decides. Just this once. When he blinks, his eyelids stick together before he can open them again, a recognisable danger sign repeating itself throughout his life. The adrenaline’s wearing off and he’s not a big fan of what follows.

Besides which, the walk to his office feels a little too much like a walk of shame after his tiny outburst. The prospect of remaining at his post, his neck burning hot under the scrutiny of all and sundry (shit, how long until M hears about this?), quite frankly does not appeal in the slightest.

A quick nap, that’s all he needs. Thirty minute cat-nap – like Napoleon, he thinks, with a small smile that stretches into another yawn – and he can check back in with the mission, and 007.

The cot in his office isn’t very comfortable, but it doesn’t have to be. The moment he lets his eyes fall closed, the world vanishes.

\------------

Somebody’s saying his name – or at least the initial which (thankfully) replaced his name so completely and utterly less than a year ago.

“Q, love. Time to wake up.”

He feels a hand brush through his hair and follows the sensation back up from the depths of sleep. The familiar voice makes him smile absently, more open than usual perhaps, because he feels oddly well-rested – such a novelty – and that never fails to bring his defences down for those few tell-tale moments as he returns to the world of consciousness.

“M’wake.”

“Of course you are, dear. Come on, I’ve made you some Earl Grey and everything.”

“’Thought y’weren’secretry.”

“Your vocabulary really does take a nosedive before your brain warms up, doesn’t it?”

“S’diction. No’ voca’blary.”

“Q.” The soothing warmth in his hair turns abruptly to sharp pain, making him curse. “Up.”

Begrudgingly he opens his eyes, it being rather difficult to glare at somebody otherwise. Her face is blurred – somebody must have taken off his glasses whilst he was out – but he doesn’t need to see it to know the exact smile of unmoved superiority that defines Eve Moneypenny.

“After all your lectures on my sleep patterns,” he comments, accepting first the glasses which bring the world into bright and uncalled-for focus and – more eagerly – the mug which is getting to be an extension of his arm these days. “Some might call those mixed messages.”

She only hums in reply. This is incredibly suspicious, in that ‘innocent’ is not something which sits well on Eve’s shoulders, especially since Q has learnt very quickly not to trust a single thing that makes her seem anything less than the grand puppetmistress of all creation. It’s a little paranoid, but the accuracy of its results is undeniable.

“How long have I been out?” he asks carefully, blowing steam off the surface of his tea. Granted, the performance might be tied to anything – the zombie apocalypse, perhaps – but the sleep issue is the most obvious candidate, so it seems fair to start from there.

“Oh, not long at all,” she assures him. “Twelve hours, give or take.”

Eve must have been waiting for him to take his first sip. That sort of timing doesn’t come from anything less than nefarious plotting.

Wiping his chin with the sign of his hand, Q accuses, “You’re lying.”

“No, you lied when you said you’d ‘look into that sleep thing’.”

He narrows his eyes at her, despite knowing full well that all he’ll get is the same sweet smile as ever. He’d say that Eve relies on that smile too much – he’s seen her use it on casual visitors, heads of branches, agents (Double O and otherwise), and the PM – except that he knows that the smile isn’t the point so much as what it’s hiding. Yanking his hair with a smile is just the tip of the iceberg that is Eve Moneypenny. It’s possibly why he loves her so much.

Then his brain reaches optimum running speed, and he remembers. “007 – ”

“- is fine,” she tells him, clearly having anticipated the question all along. (No surprise there: Eve anticipates everything, it’s as useful as it is bloody terrifying.) “He’s stabilised and he’s on his way back now. Mission accomplished.”

“What do you mean?” Q demands, sitting up and narrowly avoiding getting tangled in the blanket (who the hell put a blanket over him?). “He – You don’t stabilise from that!” Granted, he never saw the wound, but, “He got stabbed!”

“I would have thought you’d be familiar with James’ record by now.” Q peers closely at her, even though he already knows that if Eve is hiding something, he doesn’t stand a chance at uncovering it. “No doubt he’s already checked himself out of Medical – unless, of course, they’ve finally started listening to me about handcuffing him to the bed. Now,” she goes on, cutting off any further questions with a sweep of her hand towards the door to his office, “Sleeping Beauty, your minions await.”

\----------

Q does not run to Medical at the first opportunity for a tearful and lustfilled reunion (that’s not his prediction, Q Branch is more than a little inclined towards crazy and they do love their gossip, real or imagined, it doesn’t matter). He’s fairly certain that anybody who’s even remotely familiar with him should realise that he’d rather chew off his own arm than confront such a minefield of embarrassment and awkwardness. His two least favourite things in the world, and 007 there to make them even worse. Quite simply, Hell lurks in Medical.

Besides, there remains a mission to run – even though his team, bless each and every one of them (except the gossipmongers, obviously), have done a sterling job patching up wherever they can under Gerty’s guidance – and another after that. Q now considers himself fairly topped-up with regards to sleep (in fact he plans to never sleep, if that’s what happens), and he refuses to leave his department in the lurch like that, ever again. Far better to bury everything under a pile of work. If nothing else, he has to make sure nobody reckons they can send him off to bed twice.

(Katy, he notices on one of his very pointed ‘I am master of all I survey, bow down ye mortals and despair’ perusals of the room, is doing her very best to hide behind her workstation as if she very definitely did not order her boss to bed. Quite frankly, Q smells the florid brimstone of Eve’s influence, and decides not to hold it against her, in lieu of some sort of lecture regarding spurning temptresses and all that.)

Q does such a good job of hiding in his work – his specialist subject, not that he really is hiding, of course – that when he looks up from his workstation to relocate his mug after the latest refill and sees 007 watching him, he feels the sound he makes in response is fully justified.

The expression on 007’s face suggests otherwise, but then again, Double Os are all twats anyway.

“Came to return this,” 007 offers, raising his Walther along with an eyebrow before sliding the gun across the desk to rest by Q’s keyboard, followed afterwards by his earpiece. Q blinks down at it in what is definitely disbelief, even if he’s not sure which part he’s reacting to. 

“Imagine that,” he says, determined not to sound faint, “both you and your equipment in one piece. Will wonders never cease?”

“Funny, medical said something roughly similar.”

“What are we calling ‘roughly’?”

“’Are you fucking kidding me’.”

Q’s head snaps up. 007 shrugs expansively. “Those were the exact words they used.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Q doesn’t want to think about what a headache 007’s continued existence must be for the poor souls in Medical. It’s not the death wish, since all the Double Os – and a fair amount of the rest of MI6 – have one of those, it’s all but actively encouraged in the service of Queen and country. No, it’s not the lax attitude towards survival, it’s the fact that he continues to survive nonetheless. 007’s file contains statistics to make your head spin. “Still, you’d think they’d be used to it by now.”

“She did sound resigned,” 007 reports, and Q frowns slightly, because there seems to be something hanging in the air. As if 007 isn’t saying everything. Normally Q doesn’t pick up on things like that, but talking to 007 is very much connected with his ‘work brain’ (Eve calls it that, he finds it oddly charming in implying that there’s any other part of his brain to bother with), and hence he can’t really stop himself from analysing, well, everything.

Such as the way 007 is looking at Q in the exact way he looks at mission targets. It’s equal parts looming, suspicion and supposed amicability, and Q doesn’t trust any of them. Nothing sets off alarm bells quite like the idea that 007 is dawdling. Double Os don’t dawdle; they hunt.

“I’m sure we can all sympathise,” Q assures him. With any luck, maybe the trained special agent with more than a decade of experience won’t notice that he’s nervous. “Anything else I can help you with?”

007 narrows his eyes. Feeling less like a department head and more like a visualised target, Q deems the best course of action ‘retreat’.

\----------

Technically 007 isn’t a stranger to Q Branch. If it’s part of his mission, then he’s there, getting under their proverbial feet like one of Q’s cats. He might not know what’s going on, but he knows when to go quiet and when to speak up (even if he often ignores such knowledge), and he absorbs information far better than anybody gives him credit for. Besides, he hates not being present for every moment. Q thinks he can relate to that.

What’s different here is that this isn’t for a mission – not precisely. Not his. Oh, it started with 004’s assumption of that clusterfuck, which naturally turns out to contain wheels within wheels and the sort of globetrotting associated with one of 007’s missions. At first Q assumes 007 is just brooding over what might have been. Certainly 004 sounds exasperated when he finds out that he has to fly from Moscow to Puerto Rico on the thinnest of leads – “Are you sure it’s not to late to give this back to 007?” is the question, and you can tell 004 is a professional because he so obviously wants to say ‘that wanker’ but _doesn’t_.

Only then it’s not just 004. It’s every mission. 007 becomes this looming ghost in Q Branch, one who only leaves when Q snaps his fingers and orders it, and even then there’s a distinct air of resentment which hangs in the air. Before, 007’s presence could be irksome but at least made for some decent conversation, a distraction, who didn’t mind when Q tails off mid-sentence because he’s noticed the espionage equivalent of something shiny in the data feeds. Truth be told, Q enjoyed the company, especially when the clocks claimed the time as 0400 hours and Q Branch minions grew scarce and overly-caffeinated. 

This is so very different, though. This is oppressive.

Especially when, in the days that follow, suddenly 007 is everywhere, provided you look hard enough. Not quite often enough for Q to sound less than paranoid, only he knows his agents. 

The meaning is obvious: Q’s being watched.

He just doesn’t know why.

\-----------

Bond clears the checks – Medical say they have nothing to complain about, besides the usual, and Q checks the records and they’re really not kidding – and also the psych eval – mostly because the shrinks would love nothing more than to ground him but need a more specific reason than ‘everything’. In what seems like no time at all, he’s out in the field again. 

Quiet missions, for 007, with almost no explosions. It’s bloody unnerving, is what it is.

Except there’s something off. Something Q can’t quite put his finger on. And it’s not just the bloody explosions.

The kills, maybe? He does a very poor job of hiding his flinch at the wet sound of a knife punching its way into flesh, over and over, with surprised gasps and chokes which sound all too familiar. Just when he thinks this job has killed off so much of his humanity, here it is, lurking in the form of a fairly basic piece of memory association. He flinches and forces himself to breathe, and neither he nor 007 says a word about it.

The body count itself is fairly standard. That’s not the problem. 007 shows neither more nor less inclination towards murder as a result of his own brush with it. Nothing unusual about that: it’s not like he’s never survived before, and murder, as he put it so eloquently, is nothing but employment.

007’s certainly more curt with Q now. If there’s flirtation (as the loathed gossipmongers put it), that’s only because that just how 007 talks. Q thinks he should be pleased that for once he doesn’t have to deal with backchat, but instead he feels just the opposite.

Of course, all of this just seems to highlight that it’s not 007 who’s off, but Q. After all, they’re both on trial here. (Q did indeed receive that reprimand, barely escaping another eval by the skin of his teeth and his terrifying way with a computer.) Anybody could say that he’s jumping at shadows. Q in particular does not appreciate Eve not even trying to come with excuses to stand at his shoulder (oh God he’s so glad she’s there).

More than once, he feels her hand settle on his shoulder, or momentarily rest at his back, supposedly to better squint at the screen. He’s not buying it, she doesn’t lie to him, and the rest of his department know better than to comment. If Q isn’t saying anything, then they won’t either, and he loves them all for the pile of social anxieties and awkwardness that they are.

After 007 signs off, Q asks, “Is something wrong?”

“With him or with you?” Eve murmurs, right as ever. “Calm down, love. You both just need some time.”

“Time for what?”

Eve, cryptic gatekeeper that she is, raises her eyebrows and says nothing.

\-----------

007 returns his gun intact. Again.

“You’re spoiling me, 007.” Q wishes he could see this as some sort of present, even if the earpiece is missing, like one of his cats presenting him with a dead rodent. Unfortunately, he reckons that if 007 is putting any meaning into it, it’s not a good one.

“I didn’t need it,” 007 responds, and he might just mean that he didn’t need to, oh, feed it to a Komodo dragon, or use it as a rudimentary and highly expensive missile, but at the same time Q can hear a knife to the gut over and over and he can’t think straight right now. 

\----------

Being dragged out of his department by Eve Moneypenny is one of those things in Q’s life which should seem odd but in fact come off as perfectly natural.

There are quite a few of those, these days.

“Q,” she announces, her hand pointedly covering his screen and ignoring his small yelp at the thought of the fingerprint smears on his display, “come with me if you want to live.”

As ever, the reference slows him down, distracts his thought processes enough that long-nailed fingers are already closing pointedly around his shoulder to turn him around towards the door. “If the machines are rising against us, don’t you think I’d be the first to know?”

“I think you’d be the first to design them,” is Eve’s assessment. 

“Thank you,” he says, mostly on instinct but also more than a little flattered, since he knows there’s truth beneath her flippancy. There are more than enough memos from other, more ethically-bound departments to assure him of that. “So, have I unknowingly become your new overlord?”

“You need to eat, love, your delusions of grandeur are even worse than usual.”

He gets as far as “I don’t have – ” before it registers. “Eve, please say you’re not taking me to lunch.” She says nothing, but he fancies he feels that grip tighten. “What’s wrong with just bringing me sandwiches?” he whines. “I was just in the middle of a very important – ”

“You were in the middle of your eleventh hour without eating,” she interrupts.

“That’s not bad, for me.”

“The last thing you ate was half a chocolate biscuit.” 

“Have you been spying on me?”

“We’re in the espionage business, love,” she reminds him with an unnerving smile. “And you’re not the only one with minions.”

It’s at this point that the door to Q Branch whispers closed behind them, so Q can’t immediately start screaming about the security breach. He’ll have to hunt down the moles later.

He follows Eve, grumbling all the way even he barely stops short of hissing as the light of the outside world burns itself into his retinas. “Since when did the sun show itself in England?”

“I imagine it happened after you decided to confine your department to an underground bunker.” 

Not only does Q have holes in his security, he also gets to deal with Eve bringing this up again. Today keeps getting better. “It’s a secure location,” he reminds her, “we have everything set up; it keeps back-up servers separate; you don’t have to worry about providing test facilities because we have all the space anyone could need and it’s all in the centre of London; in age of the war of terror where despite being a secret service we’re supposed to have a public face, we maintain a bunker Six can retreat to at any time – ”

“Q,” Eve interrupts, almost sad, “please don’t start ticking off points on your fingers. I have heard you recite these before, I have read them more times than anyone could want, and when you do that it ruins your disguise of not being a mad scientist liable to bring down the world to prove his theories.”

Sheepishly, Q lowers his hands, stuffing them deep inside his anorak pockets lest they fly forth again. It’s only then that he registers where they are. “Eve,” he says slowly, “I thought you meant popping out to a Costa.”

Eve smiles as she guides him gently but inexorably through the door of possibly the only non-chain restaurant within several streets. “I’m feeding you. That means feeding you something other than your third ham and cheese panini this week.” Then Q discovers that it is indeed always possible for things to get worse, because suddenly she perks up and exclaims, again too innocently by half, “So good of you to make it, James!”

Truth be told, it’s all Q can do not to turn tail and run out of there as fast as he can. 

Sure enough, 007 is lounging in the foyer with the air of someone who would much rather be having sex with beautiful women right now. Unless Q is just projecting his own idea of whatever it is 007 does when not almost dying or stalking him. The only comfort lies in the observation that he looks just as surprised to see Q, albeit less panicked by the revelation.

“Eve,” Q hisses through his rictus grin, “what the hell is this?”

“Darling, this is lunch.” She even has a reservation. Q can’t help but wonder how long she’s been planning this. He almost asks 007, except that would involve engaging him in conversation, and when he turns towards him, he shrinks back from the intensity of the look directed his way. If his walk to the table is a little stilted and robotic, that’s only because, again, he’s trying not to make a run for it. Amazing, really, the hold Eve has over him.

Still, he can do this. This is just an extremely awkward lunch with work colleagues. He’s had plenty of those, especially before MI6 picked him up and every conversation was just a distraction from time he could spend poking at things online which should not be poked.

“Oh,” Eve announces suddenly, before she can sit down, “just remembered I have to head back to the office. Have fun, boys!”

It is possibly the worst performance ever, and he hisses, “How the hell were you a spy?” through clenched teeth at her back, before she is gone – with no further goodbye than the accursed blown kiss through the restaurant window, he is going to _kill her_ – and oh no.

Q is alone in a restaurant with James Bond.

He turns back in his seat, not even looking at his now _sole_ companion, and lets his head drop onto the table.

“Slightly overdramatic, don’t you think?”

For once, Q does not immediately have a witty rejoinder. For once Q’s brain does not respond instinctively to 007’s particular brand of banter; for once conversation is not simultaneously exhausting and easy as breathing.

He feels his right eye noticeably twitch, and manages, “ _Pot_.”

“I never said otherwise,” 007 points out, and grins at him around the rim of the wineglass before taking a deep draught.

It is entirely possible 007 is not human. It is entirely possible that he is some sort of cyborg or genetic experiment, because 007 _is not possible_ , and Q _hates_ him.

“Weren’t you being monitored for smoke inhalation?” Not that 007 doesn’t already inhale enough toxins to give him lung cancer three times over, but things like ‘your agent is caught in a burning building because he prefers stabbing to shooting now’ tend to linger in the mind.

For 007, however, they presumably barely register. At least, that’s the impression given when he answers coolly, “They cleared me after they couldn’t find anything.” Because of course they couldn’t. Because 007. 

Food arrives and Q barely tastes it. It must be good to get an endorsement from both Eve – who’s eaten everywhere in London and who Q trusts not to subject him to something foul unless he’s done something reprehensible – and 007 – who can’t be coaxed anywhere sub-par under duress. He’s honestly distracted by the slightly awkward silence between them. 007 seems comfortable enough with not having to talk, especially if the alternative remains inanities, but Q’s just very aware that beforehand their conversations used to be fairly natural. Something to look forward to, even. There’s just this looming fact of Q’s tiny breakdown over the comms and personally he finds that hard to talk about and even harder to forget.

Feeling like he really should be making some attempt to fix this – as far as there might be anything to fix, Eve did give that impression-slash-direct-order, but humans are hard and Q’s really not certain that there’s anything about 007 right now that’s any different to how he has been all along, a growing messy map of scars both physical and psychological, it’s only natural – Q says quietly, “How are you?”

007 raises his eyebrows. At first Q thinks it’s some sort of commentary on the inanity of the question, until some sort of social skills hind brain he didn’t even know existed suggests that it might be more related to the fact that Q said it more to his fork than to the agent opposite. 

At least grateful that he doesn’t blush easily, he repeats the question. When there’s no immediate response, he adds, “You know. Almost dying. People… I think you’re fine, except you’re not, people say you aren’t, they’d know, I thought I should ask?”

007 looks at him, long and hard and distinctly unimpressed. “I’m not dead,” he points out.

“And that is a good thing,” Q agrees. “Is that all, though?”

007 lets out an exasperated sigh, which finally makes Q less awkward and more annoyed. “Please don’t try to make this some philosophical discussion.”

“Perish the thought. I find those ghastly.”

“Had a fair few, have you?”

“Late nights at Q Branch,” Q divulges. “You’d be surprised what gets discussed with insufficient sunlight and more than sufficient drinking.”

Leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, 007 comments, “So good to hear you’re running the department responsibly.”

“Don’t push me, 007,” Q warns. “I have an army of cat spies arrayed across this city and I will use them.”

007’s eyes narrow fractionally, clearly assessing whether there’s any validity to the threat, even as he scoffs, “I doubt they’d be able to do much to me.”

“Then you have clearly never been on the receiving end of an angry ball of fur and claws.” He means it lightly, although there’s the slight darkness of memory at the edges of his words. 007 looks as though he isn’t sure whether to feel amused or threatened. “What I am asking,” Q pushes on, “is just if I should be worried.”

“Worried about anything in particular?”

Q frowns. “Well, you. Apparently I’m supposed to be worried about the agents under my care, and you are one of those agents, so here we are.”

“So sorry to be a burden.” Ah. A little belatedly Q can see the stormclouds gathering overhead. Very few field agents enjoy someone making repeated enquiries into their wellbeing. It always sounds like an undercover eval. Double Os hate it even more, and naturally 007 bears the honour of the least tolerance for this sort of thing. “This isn’t a job where you’re not familiar with the idea of death. I’m used to it; we all are.”

Overdramatic as ever, 007 stands and throws a few notes onto the table, before striding off out of the restaurant.

Q glares at the space he left; the food he apparently didn’t need finishing; the money which covers the bill and then some. He thinks that he shouldn’t have to put up with this shit.

Fortunately, he reflects that he now has access to two very finely made dinners, and no agents to bother him.

Unfortunately, his appetite always dwindles into near-nothingness when presented with puzzles and a nagging sense of paranoia.

Idly he creates some terrible hybrid concoction in a protest against the strict divisions of class within a capitalist society, and muses on just why he feels like he didn’t just undergo an awkward lunch as a thinly-veiled inquisition.

\----------

Being ordered home is humiliating, sleep deprivation or none. Never mind that Q’s building looks far less familiar than the outer reaches of Darfur. If they wanted someone less obsessive, they shouldn’t have hired him to run that department. In fact, they probably shouldn’t have hired him at all, and that’s even before you get into how if anything he forms the perfect picture of the ideal dedicated MI6 employee. Frankly, he doesn’t understand what the problem is.

There’s a faint mewl from the general vicinity of his feet. He sighs, glancing down because if he doesn’t confirm then he’ll have to put up with Eve’s security lecture again (it is pointless to hope that she won’t know, Eve _always_ knows, he is the one with almost unlimited if occasionally illegal access to most cameras in London but he has no idea how she does it).

“I have things to do tonight.”

The cat – the kind of Heinz variety of breeds that Q loves and pedigree-holders loathe – ignores this piece of information, preferring to continue staring up at him pointedly.

“No, really,” he insists, unlocking Entrance #3 with the voice-print analyser at the same time (some day he should probably change the password), “I am a very busy and important man, not your entertainment.” 

Not for the first time, he has the enviable experience of being side-eyed by a cat, before it stalks past him through the open door, tail held loftily erect. Q indulges himself by rolling his eyes up to the heavens, then follows, resetting the lock behind him. Unsurprisingly, today’s honoured guest has already made himself at home on the kitchen counter, pointedly positioned next to the fridge.

This sort of behaviour really is disgustingly presumptuous. Almost as disgusting as the fact that there is indeed food in there for him, because Q is a bit of a softie when it comes to cats who have temporarily tired of their owners’ preferred dishes. (And yes, of course he knows who he belongs to, he’s a bad enough security breach as it is. He just prefers not to linger on the turn his life has made where he has to run background checks on bloody pets who showed up on his fire escape months ago and won’t leave him alone.)

Opening the fridge door, he tells him, “I don’t have time for this.” Taking out Eve’s latest pointed gift of leftovers and dividing it between two plates, he reminds him, “I don’t spend all of my time waiting for you.” He nudges his – distinctly larger – portion towards his discerning nose. “I have a life.”

Naturally, despite the fact that this has been going on for months, it isn’t until later that evening, with Heisenberg curled up distractingly in his lap and Q reaching awkwardly around him to reach his laptop’s keys, for once grateful for these ridiculously spindly pianist’s fingers, that it occurs to Q that there might be more than one over-demanding cat in his life.

At least this one hasn’t blown anything up.

(Yet.)

\----------

“You know, 007,” Q says reflectively, “it might be nice to actually leave someone alive to interrogate. Just to speed things along.”

“Do I tell you how to do your job?” comes the growled response, accompanied by a choking gurgle which makes Q wince (not because the sound is unpleasant, which it is, or he has a basic empathic revulsion at the sound of death, which he probably should, but because the audio quality makes it really rather distracting). 

“Yes.” Not that Q listens, any more than Bond listens to him. It’s just one more example of the great value they both place on good communication. “I’m just offering some friendly advice.”

Bond’s reply makes Q’s eyebrows shoot up. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before, regardless of Royal Naval backgrounds, it’s just far more vehement and vulgar than he’s used to from Bond’s communications. Generally on missions the agent is far more prone to painful one-liners, to the point where they’re cited on the psych evals as evidence of ‘sociopathic tendencies’ (“Besides all the killing?” Q has to query). Turning the airwaves blue is something Q would expect of one of the younger agents, unused to the more old-fashioned ways of expressing displeasure.

“Whatever makes you happy,” he hears himself reply.

\----------

“Just tell me I’m wrong,” is the phrase which Q instantly regrets. 

Quite rightly, the shrink blinks at him in some considerable surprise before answering. Q feels far less charitable towards the subsequent slow smile at scenting blood in the water. He knows it’s unfair, and that he shouldn’t generalise, and that really MI6 needs these people to monitor the miasma of insanity over this place, but he really hates psychologists and psychiatrists and therapists and pretty much anybody paid to potentially go rooting around in his brain. He supposes he’s just funny like that.

“Is this a burning desire to introduce a source of criticism into your life?” Jeffries thinks he’s funny. He uses this delusion to be far blunter in his line of questioning than the rest. Q can do this psychoanalysis thing too.

He smiles politely, because unlike 007 he has enough sense not to provoke people who can use phrases like ‘sociopathic tendencies’ on evals and make his superiors take them seriously. “Nothing so general,” he assures him, refusing the offer of a seat. “I wanted to ask you about one of my agents.”

“007?”

Q keeps his face perfectly blank, the way he’s practised, but the pedant in him points out, “I do have other agents.”

“Yes, you do.”

Jeffries looks at him in a way which can only be described as Psychology, and Q finds himself uncomfortable enough not to pursue whatever vague point was supposed to be made there. “I realise asking if you’ve noticed anything irregular with regard to 007 might seem a little redundant, or at least incapable of a short response, or possibly an evaluation of whether it’s actually possible to apply the word ‘irregular’ to 007 as anything other than a definition, or – ” He interrupts himself. Jeffries has the stillness of a hunter trying not to disturb his prey. “…I was just wondering if you’ve noticed anything recently,” he finishes lamely.

Gazing at him steadily, lest Q have some sort of breakdown unobserved, Jeffries taps a few commands into his laptop. Q takes some small pleasure in the moment that he finally does glance at the screen, only to frown and have to hit a few more buttons.

Allowing himself a smile, Q asks, “Do you need any help?” because there are few things more satisfying than getting one of the shrinks to break character and glare at you. “A simple yes or no would suffice. With regard to either question.”

Jeffries apparently gives up on the computer performance, which is less embarrassing for both of them, in favour of the more traditional steepled fingers. “There are some who say that your current position involves too much power and responsibility for your age.”

“Then I suggest they find someone older who can do it better.” A brief stand-off. Q really hates having to come here, but anybody even tangentially or by-acquaintance associated with HR is, ironically enough, quite appalling when it comes to answering e-mails, especially when it comes to straight answers. “Now: 007.”

Were this an anime, Q reflects, Jeffries’ glasses would glint diabolically before every sentence. (Occasionally Q has a similar suspicion about himself.) “He’s certainly displaying some curious patterns in the field, isn’t he? His Walther must be positively dusty by now.”

“It’s seen less intact days.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Jeffries,” Q says, only glad that he kept the growl out.

“Of course, you’re concerned. I understand. Who wouldn’t be, on observing that in the aftermath of a near-death experience one of their agents has chosen to reproduce the incident, again and again?”

“What – ” Q stops and has to swallow and force the words out, as much as they feel heavy and bitter on his tongue. “What do you think it means?” This is a dark day.

With clear delight, Jeffries replies expansively, “Well, it could be any number of things. Obviously 007 is notoriously recalcitrant when it comes to his own evaluations, not to mention his reports, leaving us to extract what signs of trauma we can. It’s certainly a worrying tendency, and we have reported it – ” Q can just imagine M’s retort of ‘tell me something I don’t know’, with just enough extra language to throw people off as ever “ – but he has refused an extended leave and given his record we’re in many ways more concerned about the effects of prolonged relaxation than violence.

“Now, as to his motives, we can obviously place our faith in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but whether there might be something more – something sufficient to cause his usually equally reluctant Quartermaster to visit in person – ”

“If you’re concerned, I can leave.”

Jeffries sighs, before taking on an air of absolute patronisation. It fits him like a glove. “He’s exploring the odds. He’s simply dealing with a traumatic event – ”

“Through sociopathic serial killing?”

Never before MI6 had Q ever heard a grown man titter. He greatly dislikes the experience. “I fear you use the word facetiously. As I said, given 007’s unique psychological circumstances – ” _Given that he’s fucking insane and you’re terrified, you mean_ “ – we can only speculate without proper observation. But the act of attempting to re-enact a traumatic experience to gain some understanding of your own ‘luck’, there is some sound research in that area. Coping mechanisms come in all forms, and in that, this would seem one of 007’s more normal moments. Not healthy _per se_ , but hardly his worse, possibly even encouraging. Perhaps even 007 is beginning to lose faith in his own remarkable odds of survival, as he grows older and – ”

“Thank you,” Q interrupts.

Jeffries looks surprised, eyebrows raised and eyes subtly wider. “For what?”

Q offers a mild inclination of his head and a smile, both of which when observed can make all of Q Branch go very still indeed. “For confirming my opinion of your own. Good day to you.”

It really is insufferable, the way they’re all answerable to these people. Having to smile at them rankles; not being able to get back to his computer to make their lives a living hell is worse. However, that’s a legitimate job for you, he reflects on his way back to the bunker where he feels most at home. At least he’s heard the official explanation, and there is some merit to it, he’ll admit. There’s definitely statistics at work here. He can smell that a mile off. 

Numbers are the easy part. It’s people who are the problem.

Every now and again, Q finds something he doesn’t want to be right about. He never enjoys the experience.

\----------

Technically you can break into Q’s flat – in the same sense that you can break into Buckingham Palace. All it takes is perseverance, good reflexes, superior skills in both hacking and covert operations, and sheer dumb luck.

When the sensor in Q’s pillow vibrates – developed for the deaf or hard-of-hearing, quite useful as a silent alarm for the paranoid or government-employed – this shopping list presents him with a flatteringly short range of suspects.

(Q is actually fairly alert when he wakes up like this. It’s the ‘healthy’ amounts of sleep that take it out of him; four hours doesn’t slow him down and serves amply to recharge the batteries.)

On the other hand, he recalls as he slides his hand under the pillow for the taser disguised as a mobile and reaches out for his glasses, such a short list means he most likely doesn’t stand a chance against the intruder. Which is why it is quite so unfortunate when he checks the low-brightness screen under the covers to discover a few different alarms have been tripped, all of which mean he may well have to fight his way out. He can’t help but frown at the screen in confusion though, because if that particular set of alarms has been triggered, then there should be at least one dead body involved for precisely the reason of not getting trapped, yet there’s definitely somebody still moving through his home.

God, he hates professionals.

Thankful for wearing pyjamas, Q slides out of bed as silently as possible for someone lacking in training. No cats around tonight: another thing for which to be grateful. It’s important to keep track of these things, lest he instead focus on how (potentially) utterly fucked he is.

He’s not going to question why there’s a knife on the table by his bedroom door. Q tends to sit down and tinker wherever he is, then finally get up when he needs tools only to bring them back to where he started. Besides, it’s not a huge kitchen knife or anything like that, so really there are worse hazards in his life. Like intruders, for example. 

His breath sounds far too loud, so he holds it. Leaning in close to the door, he can’t hear anything, and he weighs up the pros and cons of hiding here whilst ignoring the list of every single thing in Q Branch which could help him right now. 

Suddenly he remembers, breath escaping too loudly, and, cursing himself for an idiot, he thumbs the sequence which sends a distress call to Eve.

Right. He could just hide out in here. He has a taser, and a knife, one of which is useful in terms of defending himself at a distance and one of which makes him feel better. There is a former field agent on her way (hopefully). 

Then he hears soft rustling, as if someone is turning pages, and it occurs to him that an intruder here could just as easily set up a nice little bomb and make off with a lot of extremely sensitive and potentially lethal information. Of course, they’d have to find somebody to decode the manic scribblings of someone unused to holding a pen or who could break through Q’s personal firewalls (Q has a lot of backups, and they can’t all be in the bedroom), but if there’s one thing he’s learnt, it’s that with enough money and enough threats you can find pretty much everything in this world. That’s where MI6 comes in, after all. Not for the first time, he curses the fact that whilst he does have cameras in his flat, anything he’d have to do to access them would make far more noise than he’d prefer. The phone-taser’s only supposed to be a rudimentary emergency device – much like a very advanced rock to throw.

He might hear or he might imagine the sound of something being picked up in his living room. This is how mothers feel when their babies are in trouble.

Cautiously, ignoring screaming alarm bells in the back of his mind where he keeps his more rational thoughts, he reaches down and turns the doorknob awkwardly with his knife hand. (At least he doesn’t follow through on the idea of holding it between his teeth.)

The door doesn’t creak much, but he still winces and recoils. He can’t hear anything, reactions or otherwise. A glance at his screen tells him the intruder is still in the living room. He is getting very tired of not having any eyes these days.

Being a skinny rake of a seventeen-year-old – or so he’s been reliably informed by people who apparently lack the ability to accurately guess ages – he can slip out through the gap he’s made without needing to move the door any more. Again, that’s a (very small) thing to be grateful for.

He just needs visual. He’s sure he can get a look without being seen. Maybe.

Holding the taser out in front of him as if it can actively ward off evil, he advances, one careful step after another, glancing down to make sure he doesn’t step on or trip over any wires. In vain he hopes that the intruder doesn’t think to do the same.

Whoever they are, though, he’s convinced they’re somewhere after the next corner, where the living room awkwardly bends in the middle. (That’s much better than thinking about how the circular construction of his flat means it would be very easy for the stranger in his home to keep walking and end up right behind him.) Trying frantically to control his breathing – and entirely possibly only making it worse – he edges along, pressed against the wall. He thinks that if he survives this, Eve will kill him anyway.

He comes to the corner and stops, unsure of what to do next. That indecision is only compounded when he hears a soft step and the adrenaline means he can hear a faint breathing which does not belong to him, and he realises that the intruder is just around the corner and, worse, knows that he’s there.

Somehow, Q contrives to go even more still than before. Behind his glasses, his eyes are wide, even though all he can see is his own flat wreathed in shadows. Suddenly he feels very foolish, standing there with a wire-stripping knife in one hand and a mobile phone in the other. (The fact that the phone is actually a taser makes little difference in this image, and distantly he wonders whether he would have called the police even before he started working for the secret service.)

The intruder stays put; so does Q.

It occurs to him that each is waiting for the other to make the first move, and if his life wasn’t potentially at risk he might laugh. (As it is, he keeps his laugh internal and only allows himself a quick smile instead.) He can hear the stranger’s breathing and notes that it’s steady, even, and only audible thanks to the adrenaline heightening his senses which should have been used for flight from the very beginning. In the seconds before somebody finally breaks, he thinks, _They’re not trying to hide it,_ and later he’ll claim that was what gives his opponent the edge.

There’s barely a hitch in the breathing before the man – it is a man, Q thought as much – quickly steps forward to pivot around the corner, left hand coming down to catch Q’s wrist before it’s even halfway through its own motion and the right arm slamming and pinning him against the wall, forearm pressing pointedly against his throat. The taser’s secured, but Q still tries with the knife, and hears a hiss as he manages a compensatory shallow cut across the ribs before:

“Stop fucking fighting me,” 007 growls in his ear, and quite frankly Q’s first response is to lash out on principle.

“What the bloody flying _fuck_ – ”

007 releases him, probably not due to Q’s impeccable self-defensive skills and more to properly observe him flailing in indignant bewilderment. (Q can only imagine what he looks like, spluttering with outrage, hair and glasses askew and pyjamas horrendously old-fashioned.) His calm demeanour does nothing to encourage similar in Q.

In the mind-spinning confusion of wild adrenaline rush and disorienting revelations, Q reflects that perhaps if one of the cats had been around, he might have had some sort of advantage.

“What the _fuck_ do you think you’re _fucking_ doing, 007?”

“You’ve got a mouth on you,” 007 observes with a smile, moving past him like somehow that’s resolved that and homing in on Q’s cupboards. Fucking alcoholic, Q thinks meanly, and it says a lot about the jolt to his system that he doesn’t even feel guilty. “You keep that under wraps.”

“One of us has to act like a professional.”

007 opens a door at random and hesitates slightly at the sight of a mixture of cat food and various assorted wires, for all that it shows in that effortlessly smooth drawl of his. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Rather than answer, Q says with a petty smirk, “There’s some JD, third from the left,” taking some pleasure, despite the fading twitch of adrenaline and dreamlike quality to everything, in 007’s grimace. Hit the man in the balls, he barely gives an inch, but wave your cheap student-y excuse for whiskey at him and that poker face of his just falls to pieces. Like it physically pains him that Q doesn’t give a damn about quality when he’s drinking at home.

Q’s not exactly sure what it says when, after weighing up the bottle in his hand for a significant and heavily judgemental moment, 007 still pours a rather generous glass. His assessment is stuck between addiction’s lowered standards and the principle of breaking into a superior’s flat to steal his booze.

The fact that 007 throws it back like a shot regardless of the size does not help in deciding the matter.

“You might have better luck if you tried breaking into M’s,” Q offers coolly as 007 visibly winces. Really, it can’t be the worst he’s ever had. Q’s only been working with him a few months, but that’s more than long enough to get an idea of the kind of dives 007 gravitates towards outside of the tux. It’s a wonder his insides exist at all. “I don’t have the time nor the inclination to spend extortionate amounts of time or money on getting drunk.” He’s waking up properly now, he’s happy to find, enough to engage in a defence of some sort. From their very first meeting, he’s learnt that that nothing gets 007’s back up quite like playing the part of the overeducated over-privileged toff. (Real-life accuracies notwithstanding.)

007 raises a disdainful eyebrow at him, setting the glass down with a loud clank which makes Q wince. “It’s called ‘taste’, Q.”

“I thought the point of drinking was to get drunk – although I can’t imagine where I got that impression. Any ideas, 007?”

It might be unfair to refer to the twitch of 007’s expression as a ‘snarl’. That assumes that under the circumstances of home invasion, Q actually cares.

“As it is, apparently we’re now having unscheduled briefings outside of office hours, and for that, I need something a little less alcoholic and a little more caffeinated.” He forces a smile, if only because he knows that before that treasured first cup of Earl Grey, any baring of the teeth can come across as a little feral. “Stick the kettle on, would you, 007?”

007 doesn’t move an inch, towards the kettle or anywhere else. “Lock the door.”

Demanding and rude. Naturally. “The door _is_ locked,” Q hisses. “Despite your assumptions to the contrary, I’m not actually open to visitors right now.”

“Lock it properly, then.”

Q bristles, but as ever focuses on “Why?”

“There’s something I want you to see.”

Q feels his face twist, although he’s not sure whether it’s in disgust or disdain or disappointment. “Really. Frankly appalling pick-up line, even for you, 007.”

007’s eyes narrow. “I’m not trying to _pick you up_ ,” he says – there’s that not-a-snarl again – “I assumed you’d know security when you hear it, the way you go on.”

Which isn’t fair in the slightest, because ‘security’ is _not_ Q’s main concern – at least, not when it comes to this area of his job. When he homes in on one particular subject, it’s almost always 007’s blatant disregard of each device and every advance placed in his hands as anything other than his due. Security is what concerns Q when not allegedly in charge of human time bombs. Security is what Q uses 007 _for_.

He restrains himself from saying any of it. If nothing else, grandiose speeches aren’t something 007 respects. Rather the opposite: it tends to mark you out as an enemy. 

Instead Q forces himself to recognise the tells of his own agent, and certainly not to bridle like a teenager at the outright dismissal, and acknowledges that even if it is unnecessary, the best way to prise the truth out of 007 is to humour him.

Exaggerating his movements, including a weary sigh and a roll of the eyes which he learnt seriously from his teachers and half-seriously from his mother, Q goes to lock the bloody door. 007 tails him. Q wonders if it’s too late for the taser.

Tapping a screen next to the front door in order to at least appear to be locking the door – the door is pretty locked already, but Q engages a few emergency protocols because clearly 007 is jumpy or something and thinks they need something a little extra, no doubt just to build suspense – Q also pulls up a few basic records. 007 came through the window, it seems, but is apparently satisfied as to the security there. Which is good, because God knows Q isn’t. If the protocols displayed really did engage, as they claim, Q’s problems tonight should consist of how to dispose of a body.

Speaking of, he also cancels the distress call to Eve. If she does still burst in, guns blazing, then frankly 007 deserves whatever he gets. Either way, this should make the next couple of days fairly unpleasant. He makes a mental note to consult Q Branch as to which chocolates you buy a woman as an apology for calling her out in the middle of the night to deal with an assailant who turned out to be your mutual colleague. Lindt, maybe.

“As soon as you’re done,” he announces, “we are going to have a very long and no doubt boring – for you – chat about boundaries.”

“I couldn’t agree more. Although I doubt it’ll be so unpleasant for me.”

Q sends the message and shuts away the screen, rolling his eyes at 007’s typically overdramatic self, before turning around in just enough time to see James Bond shoot himself in the head.

\----------

There is blood all across his ceiling, a fair amount spattered on the walls, blood and something denser and with more _body_ , and the next hot-cold-panicked flush to sear his face and claw at his insides is very likely nausea, deep and visceral, and he’s choking on his stomach’s tremors right up until his mind chokes on the sight presented and – just for a single, terrifying, deafening moment – it just shuts down.

007 is standing there, watching him. There’s no hole in his head where Q can see it; no red creeping into those bright blue eyes. The gun is still held casually at his side, decorated with its own spatter, and focusing on it does at least let Q escape meeting that piercing gaze for a moment. He needs that.

Horror lies at the forefront, Q knows, with its potent mix of fear and repulsion and a screaming primal urge to run. Shock lies just behind, reaching round to temporarily dunk it in anaesthetic but soon to be forced either to retreat or to bed down for a potentially permanent stay. Admittedly curiosity and fascination do lurk in the background, but they’re like children peeping from behind parents’ legs, their boldness temporarily sucked away.

About when Q notices distantly that his own hands are trembling, 007 breaks his silence, if not his gaze, to prompt, “Q?” 

Q nods, not really knowing why. “I think I need to sit down now,” he announces, just before his legs give way and deposit him unceremoniously on his hallway floor.

His mind is like a stalled piece of machinery. It was working, and it will work again, only in between there’s a lot screeching and hissing and painstaking restarting involved. He can practically hear the key being turned again and again. 

He sat down too fast. He thinks he must have banged his elbow on the wall or the door or something, because there’s a very dull throb at the edge of his perception. At least the shock’s keeping that at bay too.

He just saw something impossible. All the evidence around 007 doesn’t add up, unless he accepts the impossible thing, which can’t be done because it’s impossible, this isn’t _Alice in Wonderland_ , he doesn’t have to believe six impossible things before breakfast because this is the world where the impossible doesn’t happen, that is what impossible _means_ – 

It takes the not entirely pleasant quirk at the edge of 007’s mouth to begin to pull Q back in. Nothing quite so grounding as remembering that Bond is a _bastard_.

“I think this is the least composed I’ve ever seen you.”

A few witty rejoinders catch themselves in the anger building beneath his skin, comments about 007’s own ‘leasts’ or ‘mosts’. And yes, it is anger, because there’s no need for 007 to stand there like _that_ after something like, well, _that_. Smugness has never failed to rub Q up the wrong way.

Still, that’s enough of an anchor for him to take a deep breath and ask, “Are you waiting for me to ask how it’s done?”

“How what’s done?” 007 raises an eyebrow along with the gun, as if Q could have forgotten it was there. “You know what you saw.”

And the thing is, yes, Q could very easily decide that this is some sort of elaborate practical joke. For all that his talents lie more in the binary, there’s enough trickster in him – and the tech innovations in which he delights – that he could at least begin to conceive of how you’d pull something like this off.

Except for two things. First, that 007’s sense of humour might be twisted as much as the next government-employed killer, but it’s not this kind of twisted; and second, every starting point and tactic currently offering itself inside Q’s head as his eyes dart around simply don’t fit 007’s M.O. 

Apparently sensing that something is going on, even if he’s not sure what, 007 obligingly kneels down – Q’s flinch is purely instinctive – and inclines his head. Truth be told, Q finds himself briefly a little touched by the gesture. It’s his excuse for why his fingers drift out of their own accord, brushing against the stained blond hair but finding not so much as a scar beneath.

“You knew that would happen.”

“Of course.”

In the breath between, Q notices something they have in common: the edge of accusation in their voices.

Recalling certain recent intel – certain recent observations, damn it, why didn’t people believe him when he said there was something wrong with his agents, _his_ agents – forces him to take a deep, steadying breath. “By trying to get yourself killed even more frequently than usual – no small feat, as we both know – or by re-enacting the same stabbing again and again just to be certain?”

There is something so unnerving about the cold edge 007’s eyes can take on when decades of training and life experience take hold, belying what you already assume is on full display. “Why the stabbing?”

“What?”

“Why specify the stabbing?”

Q’s eyes grow more incredulous, his voice more annoyed. “Because you are stabbing them? Because it’s been every killing since then? Why don’t you tell me why the stabbing’s significant? It’s not – ” While the penny doesn’t drop, it moves enough to get him thinking. “That’s where…this started?”

“Are you having a little trouble there?” 007 drawls. “Do you need me to do it again?”

“No!” Q yelps quickly, pushing himself to his feet. “That’s really not necessary, there’s already enough blood on the walls.”

007 surveys said blood appraisingly, no doubt speculating whether he could have made a better mess from a different angle. Shooting from the side, perhaps, although you’d have to get the right angle, or else you wouldn’t actually die – 

“Okay, so you’re…” The word catches in his throat. Say it out loud, he knows, and the whole thing becomes real. Say it out loud, and you acknowledge that this is reality. That you really did see what you just saw. That the world might still hold the fantastic and miraculous within its own traceable logical laws, but there’s something outside that, where his laws and logic have no place.

In the end, he discovers that he’s a coward. He just can’t shatter his own world that way.

So 007 does it for him.

“Immortal?”

Q’s never quite had the sense before of a word hanging in the air like this, the letters flashing with searing neon-brightness. He doesn’t want to look at it, but when he tries to avert his gaze, there it is, staring back at him. Logically, he knows this is because it’s not literally there. Unfortunately, logic has just died a messy death in James Bond’s place.

“I was going to say Wolverine, but whatever makes you happy.” The weak joke naturally falls flat: 007’s stony face offers no amusement, and Q’s always hated that character anyway.

Stumbling past 007 – trying not to step in the blood, Jesus fucking Christ, this is without all the lights on – he makes it to the kitchen, picks up the JD from where 007 left it, and even makes it to his armchair with a glass too. He’d be proud of the achievement, if his hands weren’t visibly shaking as he pours it out. He does not offer 007 any. No doubt if he wants it, he’ll take it anyway. After all, it’s not like Q would have much success fighting back right now. The moment he takes a sip, he thinks about getting stabbed in the stomach and the acid burning its way out and it’s all he can do to swallow.

“So,” he says, “you’re stabbed on a station tower in Singapore and you stop dying.”

“I thought you’d already worked that out.”

“I appreciate having intel confirmed.” He manages a more successful drink, and actually feels a little calmer, so long as he doesn’t look at Bond’s face or his bloodspattered suit. (He pities Bond’s tailor, right up until he notices that Bond had no such compunctions about bloody footprints, and he starts pitying his future self who has to clean all of this up.) “I presume you’ve already carried out your own experiments?” Setting any up in MI6 could be fiddly. Cameras are easy enough to handle; people offer more of a challenge.

“Bullets, knives, fires, explosions, car crashes,” 007 lists off. Q matches what he can to the missions he’s overseen. “Poisoning’ll have to wait until someone tries their luck, and so far drowning’s just been boring.”

Q sighs. “I should have known you’d be the sort of immortal who’d complain about it. Not sure if you’re written by Anne Rice or RTD yet.” Ah, the enjoyment of watching 007 try to parse what you’re saying. Simple pleasures matter, when cleaning up gore lies in your future. “From the lack of slurred speech, you heal instantly?”

“Anything lethal. A few cuts and bruises, enough to stop Medical having kittens.” 

“Fascinating.” Q can’t help himself. “Instant detection of wounds and assessment of danger. The drowning means you don’t even have to _breathe_. Obviously you are now, though, so it must only be present for as long as you need it – a quick fix, no long term consequences.” He knows his laptop is around here somewhere. “There’s no long-term effects? Do you still get colds?”

“I’m not your lab rat.”

Q stills and turns. 007 has dropped all pretence and is now outright glaring at him. He can’t possibly be looking for sympathy. Granted, 007 possesses very little idea of how normal people interact, yet surely that doesn’t extend to surprise at Q’s reactions to seeing someone shoot themselves in the head (ignoring for a moment how naturally 007 had to build up the drama). If anything – if the shrinks are anything to go by – Q’s breakthrough into analysis is unnerving, not rage-inducing.

There’s an undercurrent here. Something’s off; something’s staring Q in the face and the fact he’s not looking back means everything else doesn’t quite fit.

Finally something in 007’s tone, in the precise angle of his body and the subtle nuances of a face schooled in the art of casual subordination, gets through to him, and the revelation is so unexpected and so insane that he can’t help but blurt it out loud before he has a chance to actually pick it apart and decide a plan of attack. “Why do you blame me?”

“I never said I did,” 007 responds, in the calm threatening voice that very clearly assumes _I’ll take that as a confession._

Q smiles. It’s not genuine, but who the hell cares at their job anyway? “007, it’s increasingly becoming a necessary part of my job to know you far better than I’d prefer.” 

“So you keep saying. You do seem overly concerned for my wellbeing.”

“Yes,” Q agrees, loading on the sarcasm, “God forbid any of us should actually care about you.”

007 looks away, down at the floor. Thank Heaven for small mercies. “Is that mobile phone a taser?”

“You’re not having one.” Goes without saying. “That is for my personal use and isn’t economical by anyone’s reckoning. And I recommend considering the fact that you’re pouting.” 007 schools his face, a little. It doesn’t matter all that much: Q knows he’s still pouting in his mind. “Now, if you don’t mind, you’ve given me rather a lot to think about tonight, yet they will still expect me not to get anyone blown up in a few hours, so I don’t suppose you could either get to the point or leave me to deal with an impending existential crisis?”

007 informs him, “They’re over-rated,” but apparently would much rather string this out than actually say anything helpful and to the point. Such a victim of his upbringing.

“Might as well leave by the front door,” Q tells him, in a way that hopefully clearly conveys _you broke into my flat I hate you so much_. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me where the holes in the system were? Only I think MI6 at least would prefer it if didn’t get kidnapped by the first sociopathic serial killer to take a fancy.”

The commentary passes straight over 007’s head – or at least completely fails to make any sort of impact on him. Of course, that’s to be expected. The whole point of the Double O programme is to produce killers on demand, desensitised and deadly. Perhaps, according to Q’s quiet conspiracy theory, that’s why Q Branch seems to favour those who find it that bit easier to detach – the two are designed to compliment each other, after all, regardless of where the currents of progress seem to be taking them. (Although Q’s reaction to 007’s brush with the reaper would appear to contradict such an assessment to some extent, which might bear some investigation.)

“If it’s any consolation,” 007 announces with his hand on the door handle, as if consoling Q is something that actually concerns him, “most of those traps would have killed me.”

The meaning settles as a chill down Q’s spine.

007 pulls the door open with a cold twist of a smile which doesn’t even try to reach his eyes, and then he is gone.

Needless to say, Q doesn’t get any more sleep that night.

\----------

Life continues. It has a habit of doing that.

Unfortunately now the observation makes Q shift uncomfortably; sits hot and uneasy just under the skin. As much as he tries to focus – and perhaps he at least fools the agents, maybe even a fair amount of his minions, for all that Eve’s appearance a few hours into the day reminds him that the mole is still at large – it’s like his brain split in two that night, one half in the here and now, the other watching 007 shoot himself in the head again and again.

_Most of those traps would have killed me._

So he just walked right through them. Q checked the security footage. 

Funnily enough, doing so seems to do more to reassure him – or at least to give him some sort of grounding – than the actual sight and sense experience of watching it happen ‘in real life’. It helps to remove it to another level of reality, where he can act as a passive observer, rather than needing to act and react and that whole mess. Q sees better from a distance; always has done. It makes him a good Quartermaster, beyond just a good ‘cyberspy’ (or whatever the kids are calling it these days, quite frankly if MI6 had just offered him that by now he’d be crawling up the walls – you don’t convert someone by giving the same under a new heading and new restraints, you give them something they never knew they wanted). 

Over and over, Q watches the footage. At the same time as he’s wondering why he stopped at black-and-white (it adds effect, it seems ‘right’, and yet you can be as artsy as you like but it doesn’t change the fact that colour leads to fewer misunderstandings about what exactly you’re looking at), he’s picking apart some early erroneous conclusions and suppositions, proposing hypotheses, analysing and evaluating. 

(At his side, he keeps a list of which traps do best, which seem delayed, which only look all the more painfully fanciful when placed in the context of James Bond. No reason to reject field test results, after all.)

Bond doesn’t die, there on the screen. Nor does he suffer any ill effects – the simple evidence of his intact brain, exhibiting no signs of the slightest damage (in a highly relative sense) in their subsequent exchange, establishes this. There could have been blood loss – Bond’s something of an expert at ignoring that – but oxygen deprivation is a tougher challenge altogether. (Not that Q wouldn’t still put his money on him.) 

Detaching it like this does help a little. Whilst Q still has an HD surround sound auto-playback behind his eyelids – the far less rational, more panicked one – there’s something solid and reviewable on his computer screen, and that helps him breathe a little easier.

A keystroke closes the window, in reaction to the sound of the door to the roof opening and closing.

When he looks up, it’s evident that Eve knows there’s something he, well, doesn’t want her to know. She has that film noir look to her.

“I didn’t expect to see you here.”

He shrugs. “What, in all this fresh air?”

In what the Quartermaster side of him instantly pinpoints as a classic piece of powerplay, she walks up to him but doesn’t sit down next to him. He can advocate its effectiveness, since he still can’t help but avoid her eyes.

He’s not doing anything wrong. He resents the fact that he feels guilty nevertheless.

“I haven’t seen many people up here.”

“Hence its appeal.”

“I’m sure. Did James tell you about it?”

The problem with someone who has both field and secretarial experience is that they can often seem more like they’re reading a transcript of the conversation rather than actively experiencing it. In practical terms, it means that any tells are very clearly being broadcasted to them loud and clear. Here, even though it’s barely for a second, when he says, “No,” he knows she’s instead focusing on the stage direction writ large over his head, _Q hesitates before answering._

(Possibly Q likes to imagine that other people take the same sort of detached analytical view of things that he does, meaning he only has to account for their speed of response.)

“Well, he does have a way of finding these hideaways. That’s the risk of letting the agents roam around, I suppose: it’s so hard to keep track of them.”

“Are you insinuating something, Miss Moneypenny?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Quartermaster.” Her gaze keeps tracking over to the tablet at his side. The idea that he’s keeping this secret from her makes Q feel a little queasy. So much of this friendship of theirs is built on their having one person they can talk to – only this is too ridiculous, too wild, and while he does have video evidence, he finds himself highly reluctant to hand it over.

 _007 came to me,_ he thinks, as their conversation picks out a meandering pathway to something more familiar.

He also thinks, _007_ blames _me._

Responsibility and accusation. The fact is, at the moment it’s just between them. 007’s made it that way, if nothing else.

He flinches every time Eve mentions 007; covers her latest musings on the mystery of 007’s recent behaviour by tossing bits of dissected sandwich to the crows who seem to have beaten down the usual flying vermin of London near HQ.

Life goes on.

Q’s not entirely sure what he’s supposed to do about it.

\----------

007 really is deeply and inherently creepy. Terrifying as well, but first and foremost _creepy_ , like the kind of stalker you just know is going to kidnap you and break your legs one of these days.

Q would greatly like to tell him this. Unfortunately, there are some circumstances which rather deprive him of his gift for banter. Waking up in the middle of the night to find an undead assassin watching you sleep is one of them.

“I have to admit,” 007 drawls, a slow, mocking smile curling his lips, “I wasn’t expecting the cats.”

A little belatedly – due to trying not to scream or have a coronary – Q remembers his house guests, two of whom, on this occasion, have chosen to curl up on his pillow. Quite frankly they’re lucky he isn’t a restless sleeper, although he supposes that if he were, they would have cured him of that by now. “I did tell you about the army of cats. It’s hardly my fault if you ignore key intelligence.”

“I thought you were exaggerating. You are prone to that.”

“You’re prone to having sex with everything that moves. I don’t assume that every word you say is a come-on.”

007 raises an eyebrow, seating himself at the end of the bed and offering his hand for a newly-awakened cat to sniff suspiciously. Q reminds himself that that is no reason to decide to like someone who just woke you up by appearing in your bedroom. “Not one of your best,” he assesses, not even a little offended. 

Q snaps, “We can’t all be witty all the time,” shooing Bast away so he can get his glasses without her thinking it’s some sort of game. 

Apparently 007 decides to let Q’s admission go without commentary, for once. Maybe he’s just enjoying the sound of it. Besides, he seems to have gained the approval of the white cat now pushing at his hand in a demand for his attention, because of course 007’s ridiculous charm works on cats as well. He could probably charm the pump at a petrol station.

“You’re the one with an army of cats,” 007 points out, and Q closes his eyes and flops backwards in despair. “Although I’d hardly call ‘two’ an army.”

“These aren’t the only two,” Q informs the ceiling. “They all come and go however they want. And yes, 007, I do run background checks; that is my life now.”

007 sounds amused, but also confused, if he is indeed capable of that emotion. “Stray cats just flock to you?”

“The dogs can’t get this high.” Q is very grateful he can’t see 007 face. To ensure this state of affairs continues, he pulls out the same phone-taser from before to check which route Bond took this time. (He hasn’t had much luck uploading a camera playback option, although a live feed is showing slightly more promise.) 

“You’re like a bloody Disney princess. Do birds flock to you as well?”

“Mostly just crows,” Q replies absent-mindedly, before flinching and silently cursing. He swears, one of these days he is going to stop just handing these pieces of information over. That kind of thing is 007’s job; for fuck’s sake, let him actually use those skills.

007 is indeed smiling when he forces himself to look up, but whilst the disbelief makes sense, the mild concern does not. “What?”

“If you’re ever kidnapped,” 007 says slowly, “we’ll need to rescue you very quickly.”

Q scowls, bridling despite having thought something very similar himself. “Why, do you think Britain’s enemies are counting on information about which animals stalk me?”

007 leans back enough to be granted the full honour of a lapful of cat. “I’m more worried about you unleashing all the creatures of the woodland on them.” The joke falls flat, leaving only the suspicion that that wasn’t what 007 had been about to say. “She just arrived one day?” he asks in a shameless display of changing the subject.

“They all do,” Q admits, as Bast pointedly headbutts his hand in search of her own show of attention. He supposes he should be grateful they haven’t both abandoned him. “Some are strays; some just decide they don’t get fed enough at home. That one,” he points, “just likes attention. She seems to like you better though.” Jealousy is not relevant here, he reminds himself.

“The lady has taste. What do you call her?”

“Stelmaria.”

007 examines her regrettably hot-pink collar. “That’s not what it says here.”

“You asked what I call her. It’s hardly my fault you didn’t think about your phrasing.”

When 007’s eyes flick up towards him, Q thinks that for once the smile on his face might have reached them. It’s unnerving, so much as the suggestion of real warmth, enough that Q’s own is nervous and he’s quick to look away again.

“What’s it mean?”

“It means you don’t know children’s literature.”

“I’ve never had it cited as a failing.”

“There isn’t enough space on the form for all of your failings, 007.” As soon as the words escape him, Q winces. He knows what he meant: that 007 isn’t necessarily the best-adjusted of agents; that the shrinks despair of him; that he’s far from tame and trails literal and diplomatic destruction in his wake. Essentially, Q meant a light jibe at 007’s idiosyncrasies. Not for the first time, he appreciates the vast difference your precise choice of noun can make.

None of which 007 indicates aloud, of course. Looking at him, most people wouldn’t even guess he’d heard the words. Most people, however, don’t have experience of both cats and assassins, and therefore don’t have to deal with a guilt for which you can’t even apologise.

So you ignore it.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the company, but I honestly think sleep is the one thing Eve would prioritise over social interaction, so why are you here, 007? Because if it’s to shoot yourself again, would you mind warning me so I can put down some plastic sheeting? You could at least let me do the honours, after how long it took to get rid of it all last time.”

“You did a good job.”

“Compliments on cleaning up blood from a man with a body count. High praise indeed.”

“I can appreciate the trouble.”

“Hence why you leave it for the rest of us to deal with.”

Darkly, 007 comments, “Hard to shoot yourself in the head without leaving a little mess.”

Q’s proud of how he doesn’t so much as stutter in reaction. “You could have always warned me. The bathroom’s right there if you wanted an easy-wipe surface.”

“Now where’s the fun in that?”

Bast hisses and swipes at Q’s hand, before scampering off. He doesn’t blame her. 

Stelmaria is of course unmoving under 007’s attentions. God help whoever her owners are: from what Q’s seen, if he spoils his cats, that’s nothing compared to what 007 might be capable of, especially with the additional motivation of goading him. “Besides,” 007 continues, “it made my point.”

“It’s frankly tragic that your job has so warped your vision of how reality works.”

“The last mission I was on, I was in an explosion that levelled a four-storey building, and here I am. Is that how reality works?”

“Touché.” And yes, there it is yet again: the distinct edge of accusation. More than that, though: Q is familiar enough with cat mannerisms to recognise when they’re being demanding, and showing up with no concern for the other person’s convenience or current circumstances or indeed anything about their life (because clearly they only exist when you allow it) whilst constantly bringing up or implying something over and over until they get it? He’s not entirely sure who he’s describing in his life anymore.

“I know you can’t die, 007. I’m just still not entirely certain what you expect me to do about it.”

There’s something a little bit satisfying (albeit possibly self-defeating) about trying to play the weary mother to a man who makes so many biting comments regarding age and maturity.

“Fix it.”

The abrupt laugh torn out of him doesn’t even have to be faked. “ _How_? How – _Why_?”

“Because I don’t know how you did it before, but it was you. So you fix it.”

“Not ‘why me’, 007; why do you want it fixed? Don’t you think that’s a little more relevant?”

007 glares at him.

“And don’t try to sidestep the question by looking at me like I’m dinner. One of us is a key asset without whom England’s defences would crumble, and one of us is a man with a gun and possibly a lot of ingratitude.”

“So you think I should be grateful towards you?”

“007, stop acting like you’re going to get a confession, because I have nothing to confess to. I didn’t do anything. So I don’t know how I’m supposed to fix it – and, just for old time’s sake, _why do you want it fixed_? Isn’t immortality something of an advantage? Especially in your line of work.”

Unless Q’s very much mistaken, when 007 looks away, it’s to hide a mutter of “That’s part of the point.”

“Please don’t say you want an even playing field.” Q pinches the bridge of his nose, the twinge of a headache of an idea lurking in the shadows. “Because that would be insane and inane and…something else which sounds similar.” Fuck it, Bond might have given him a trademark good old burst of adrenaline, but it’s still some ungodly hour in the morning. (At least in the sense that Q has woken up to it, rather than raising his head from programming to discover it as a not-even-all-that-interesting fact.)

“I don’t.”

Q peers at him over his fingers. “Are you just saying that because I asked?”

“Why would I want to give them an advantage?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

“Not precisely.”

Q’s predecessor-but-one supervised 007 for the latter’s entire career, save for the last year and a half. He didn’t think it was possible, but Q respects the man even more now than he did before. Personally, he gives himself another month at the most before he snaps and finally appears on the news as a criminal mastermind or waving a chainsaw and screaming in unintelligible rage. Certainly the latter accurately depicts his feelings right now.

“You know what? Fine. Fine. You want it fixed? I’ll fix it. And then the first mission you go on afterwards, you can get shot in the back in some Godforsaken back alley in a country most of England’s never heard of, and you’ll get another bloody obituary as Commander James Bond of Her Majesty’s Navy, and nobody will care! Because dying’s clearly more important than living, and you’re nothing if not a broken obsolete record!”

He catches himself finally – too late – chest heaving, face a blotch of embarrassing flushes creeping down the rest of his skin. He’s both angry and mortified at the same time, neither of which is helping him look any more normal. Quite frankly, he can’t remember the last time he exploded like this.

Worse, though, is how 007’s face has gone so hideously blank. By all rights, the bastard should look at least a little amused right now. Q often gets the impression that when he loses his rag, he can come off as comical. The curse of bespectacled otherwise mild-mannered geeks everywhere, it seems. Generally 007 seems pretty amused by him, for better or for worse, intentionally or less so. The only times previously have been fairly intrinsically linked to immortality or accusing Q of magical powers, circumstances Q’s strongly inclined towards labelling as ‘unusual’.

This, however – this is different. This is Q lashing out – not even one of his accidental slips (you can’t all calculate every second of everything you do, we’re not all machines, fuck), but an all-out attack.

If he were to flatter himself, he might say this is 007 with a flicker of genuine anger. At this moment he could read a hundred tells – only he’s too close. He has to get away, because right now 007’s almost too large to see clearly. Almost as large as the sudden growing panic in Q’s head.

007’s always too large; always too hard to read. It just took an accident of overabundant life for Q to fully appreciate that.

“I’m sorry,” he stutters, sounding as teenaged as 007 so frequently accuses (sometimes with a little more bite). 

007 eyes him, effortlessly cool as ever. Judgemental just by existing, just by Q’s own bloated sense of guilt, just by that one fuck-up that set loose a killer and brought down the only person left Bond might’ve given a damn about.

Which is why he doesn’t exactly lie, but he does say what Bond wants to hear.

“Bond, I – ” The words catch in his throat, forcing him to stop before he imitates one of his cats having trouble with a hairball. (He considers some sort of metaphor to do with secrets or problems that just gather more and more trouble before you just have to get rid of them, no matter how dislikeable the situation is, but disregards it.) Apologies and guilt are hard, of course, and that almost distracts from how face-to-face ‘deception’ really isn’t Q’s forte. “I don’t know what I did, or how I did it. 

“But I promise that I am going to fix it.”

The words hang there in the air. Belatedly, Q realises that he’s adopted 007’s phrasing.

007 doesn’t smile at him. However, he does incline his head, enough that it might be thanks or perhaps just acknowledgement, but at least it’s not rejection, and, sad case that he is, Q is willing to accept that much.

Then – presumably because to say anything would in some way ruin the moment – 007 turns and leaves the room and, judging by the distant click, the flat. From a distance, Q thinks he should be grateful that the agent used the front door.

Making his way into the kitchen with a sigh, he makes himself a cup of tea, more for the ritual than for the actual beverage. A haughty Stelmaria, accompanied by Einstein and Ada – camped outside, it’s quite a turnout tonight – watches him from the kitchen counter. It reminds him of food he doesn’t want anymore. Watching them eat, Q so easily dismissed now, he once again reflects on how much easier the world must be for cats.

Bast’s waiting for him when he sleepwalks into the bedroom. Automatically he reaches out to stroke her, sipping at his tea as he tries to think.

At least the bed is somewhat welcoming when he flops backwards, with an exhalation shaped like, “Fuck.”

He wants to sleep; knows he won’t be able to move from here, in any case. He’ll toss; he’ll turn; he’ll checks his e-mails on the nearest piece of electronic equipment without turning the lights on. He’ll tap out unknown rhythms on his sheets and curse the fact that he already went through this tonight. Eventually, he’s aware, he will fall asleep out of sheer boredom. 

And finally, as the first traces of dawn threaten in the sky and he naturally finally feels himself falling, the thought that lies on the boundary of consciousness wraps itself around him:

_What if I really did do it?_

\----------

For all that Q dodges its demands as often as possible – he’s not aiming for an unhealthy lifestyle, same as the missed meals, these things slip his mind and there’s always something else he could be doing, especially now that he has been unexpectedly promoted to a VIP – he is actually aware of the beneficial effects of sleep with regard to his work. Despite how long it takes for his mind to get back up to speed, the key causing a reluctant whine from the ignition as it’s repeatedly turned, he knows that this sort of reboot is necessary. Eve’s preference for the more dramatic ‘burnout’ indicates her choice in metaphors, not his own.

The point is that Q is very aware that sleep does in fact have its uses. The unconscious mind continues to play with ideas when unwatched, and his dreams often offer solutions to problems that have plaguing him for days or those he didn’t even realise he had. Naturally they’re not all that coherent, being dreams, but the law of numbers indicates the sheer frequency with which there is at least the seed of a good idea buried within, so they do bear some attention.

For this reason, way back in secondary school, Q started keeping a notebook by his bed. The trick is to transcribe the fading brightness inside his head before it vanishes altogether. Even the vaguest impression can lead somewhere new and exciting. What’s important is not to hesitate for a moment.

This means that when Q blinks awake in the morning (or the evening, or whenever he successful achieved REM sleep this time), he’s reaching for that notebook and scribbling before he’s truly aware of what he’s doing.

Often this results in him looking down at a new design for hardware or code, already smiling at the prospect of a day which starts so promisingly, mind connecting this fragment of an idea with another to create something new to think about on the Tube.

This time, however, he still feels half-asleep, caught in a dream, because he sees three words that don’t make any sense at all – cryptic, too film-esque to be real.

_Follow the tunnels_

\----------

 

Thinking it through logically – as much as the word rankles in its current context – Q _shouldn’t_ have been able to do this, meaning that the starting point must therefore be: _how_ did he do it?

(Q is, if not a man of science _per se_ , then certainly a man with a great love of the world that science describes. Entertaining the very notion of this leaves him occasionally this close to sobbing – the tired kind of sobbing, where it’s not so much crying as your whole body just giving up.)

 _You do not have my_ permission _to die._

His hand aches at the memory.

So he has a _when_ , that’s always nice, ticking off the interrogative pronouns as he goes, meaning he has some sort of place to start, except…

He sighs; snaps at a minion; chucks back the last of his tea because doing shots whilst on the clock is frowned upon. (Not that Q Branch is a shining example of sober teetotal work enthusiasm, but it’s reserved for after hours and when they’re the ones with explosives rather than agents who might hunt them down.)

Except he can go over the moment as many times as he likes, he can’t find anything. There’s nothing to find. Not like this.

\----------

“Can you think of anything?” he asks, slumped against the wall up on the roof and wishing he’d bought something gloriously nicotine-filled on his way to work. “Anything at all?”

“I wasn’t dead.” Bond, standing magnificently posed against the spread of London, somehow converting all he surveys from shitty cynical eternally damp grey streets into hope and defiance and patriotism (did that Union Flag just manifest on its own the moment he walked up here?), remains a complete shit. “I believe that counts.”

Q doesn’t throw anything. The only ammunition up here is old cigarette butts.

“Slight tingling sensation? Melting? Sudden blindness?” The harsh cry of a crow gives him something else to look at. He’s always a fan of seeing something that isn’t another pigeon. “Glowing sigils, looming shadowy figures, a mysterious disembodied voice announcing that _it is not your time_ …” In retrospect, he should have given the attempt at a mysterious disembodied voice a miss. Whatever else might ever be said about his own, it is never going to manage ‘deep and booming’.

Bond glances over his shoulder at him. “You don’t think I would have mentioned any of that in the report?”

After another _caw_ , Q finally traces the origin to just above him. “It was one of your reports, 007. I’m surprised you mentioned being stabbed at all.” Feeling around in his pockets, Q finds some crumbs leftover from a sandwich shoved away after a rare lunch break turned out to be as mistimed as all the others. 

“Yours wasn’t much better.”

“Please don’t say you’re trying to copy my work, 007. Anything to confirm your mental age would make me weep for England’s future.” 

Bond turns to no doubt make some sort of witty comeback, again. Instead, he hesitates. “…Q?”

“Yes?”

“Are you feeding the birds?”

“A bird. Singular. And yes, that is an entirely accurate description of what I am doing at this very moment.”

Q ignores the mutter from behind him, if only because anything which has the slightest resemblance to ‘Disney’ or certain members of a royal family is clearly nonsense and deserves to be treated as such. He can’t help it if crows like him.

The silence stretches out, each with their own thoughts. Q jumps a little when Bond steps into view and the crow flies off again. “Who would you ask, if you could?”

Blinking a little in confusion at the question, Q shrugs. “Q.” Bond’s brow furrows a little, and he elaborates, “My Q. The one you obviously still think of when you try to picture ‘the Quartermaster’.” The resentment bleeds into the title without him meaning it. Still, that’s probably better than anything to indicate the hole inside him that aches at the thought. 

If Bond senses anything in it, he doesn’t comment. “What about your predecessor?”

“R?” Q chuckles at Bond’s surprise. “You should be more careful about the nicknames you choose, 007. They have a habit of sticking. Especially when the person in question is such a disaster at their job.”

“Are you allowed to talk about him like that?”

“Wide open security and an invisible car? I think so.” He grins, with an edge he misses sometimes. “Besides, some of us aren’t as bound by incorruptible cameras and mikes as others.”

There’s something vaguely unsettling about the smile which unfurls in response – unsettling, that is, to anybody whose moral compasses aren’t quite as rusted as theirs. Personally, on observing it, Q can tell why everybody keeps falling for this man. It takes his breath away too.

“Tell me more.”

\----------

Here’s the thing: Q and Bond might make a good team in the field, but without an active mission or clear goal to achieve, their own little flaws are rapidly becoming major hindrances.

Like Bond’s complete lack of patience. Like Q’s need for something solid, something _logical_. The fact that both of them can sympathise with each other doesn’t make it any easier.

“You can stop looking at me like that,” Q snaps, eyes not rising from his laptop. “You can also stop breaking in here.”

“I’m making sure you’re aware of a worrying flaw in your security measures.”

“If you’re suggesting I need to start planning for immortal assassins, I can assure you, you are the only one in my life.”

And so on.

Q’s skin is itching and his brain even more so, sleep almost entirely falling by the wayside in the face of the impossible things – mortality and Bond – he has to deal with constantly, endlessly, _always_. Even when Bond’s away – Q can hardly report ‘immortality’ as a concern, if anything it’s a boon, and the last thing either of them want is ‘experts’ poking around – the fact remains there, floating in neon behind not only their conversations over the comms but also existence in general. Not to mention Q’s still not certain if he’s supposed to feel guilty, or outraged, or anything at all.

In the end, with Bond off not dying in Kabul, Q finds himself inevitably turning to the one steady dependable rock of certainty in the world, the one-hundred-percent reliability, the one person who might be able to make it all _make sense._

\----------

“What would happen if, say, for example, 007 were to be, just off the top of my head, but supposing he was – ”

The jumble of words is brought to an abrupt halt as Eve Moneypenny turns sharply on her heel and presses a firm finger against his lips. “Q, darling, as much as I love the sound of your voice, I’m going to need you to think before you speak for a change. I love the sound of your finished sentences rather more, I’m afraid.”

The finger retreats to hover a threatening centimetre away. “I’ll try not to take it personally.”

“Do,” she encourages. “Now, what’s this entirely hypothetical situation concerning James?”

“I’m just wondering what – ” Eve’s fingernails are bloody terrifying. ‘Bloody’ being the very real potential here.

“Alright then,” she breathes, “let me give you a sentence to finish: ‘Eve Moneypenny, light of my life, it has come to my attention that Agent 007 is…”

Q mumbles the impossible, insane word, deliberately obscuring not just the sound but the lip movement as well. He’s only delaying the inevitable, he knows this. He does it anyway.

Eve threatens, “Don’t make me ask James myself,” and it turns out that’s enough to drag the truth out of him. (In fairness, if she’d resorted to torture he probably wouldn’t have held out as long as most would hope, if only because Eve knows his weak spots in a way nobody else does or hopefully ever will.)

“Immortal.”

A pause. “Louder, please.”

“007’s immortal.” When she doesn’t immediately react – at least not visibly, not with any of the twitches or quirks he’s starting to catalogue from his army of trained killers, although for the most part those are based on limited samples in limited situations – he adds, “Possibly.” He’s not entirely sure why: there’s not a whole lot ‘possible’ about a secret agent blowing his brains out in your flat only for said (alleged) brains to remain (more or less) intact. 

Carefully, Eve comments, “Interesting theory.”

“You might say that.”

For a moment, as Eve purses her lips, Q suddenly and highly unpleasantly feels a hand of pure panic seize his heart, only now truly picturing a world where she doesn’t believe him.

Christ, he realises, he needs Eve to believe him. He _needs_ her. It’s something almost too basic, too intrinsic to put into words. Eve is his best friend and very likely the main reason he’s not run himself into an early and ignominious grave, and if he loses her because 007 has gone and become somehow even more impossible than ever before, then let’s simply say that Bond’s new lifespan will not be an especially enjoyable one. Q turns _nasty_ when he cares.

Finally – it might not have been all that long, Q’s scrambling back from a particularly violent onslaught of thoughts – Eve reaches out again; traces the line of his tie from the hasty-but-improving half-Windsor knot down to where it vanishes into his jumper; abruptly flicks it up again, just missing his nose and making him instinctively recoil. He hates it when she does that. What he does not hate, though, is the very familiar smile that accompanies it.

“Alright then,” she says, already taking hold of his tie and guiding him gently but firmly along, “start talking.”

It doesn’t mean she believes him straight away, and he knows that. He could hardly expect anything else. After all, he is all too aware of what his own reaction would be.

But she listens to him anyway, lets him explain and produce a carefully-encrypted file he’d secured permission for when he’d convinced Bond they needed a third person in this odd supernatural conspiracy who could be trusted to be, well, a little more level-headed about the whole thing. And really, it’s that which matters the most.

\----------

It’s later – much later. They’re in Eve’s flat, all curved lines and soft furnishings and both more ordered than Q’s chaos and more personal than he imagines 007’s page of a catalogue. Q feels at home here, if only because Eve goes out of her way to make sure of that. He likes having a neutral ground, not work and not his own flat either, where things are comfortably out of his control.

Eve taps her right index finger thoughtfully against her mug of bog-standard Fair Trade English Breakfast tea. Normally when they’re together on her sofa after midnight like this, they’ve broken out the latest red from Tesco’s, but by unspoken agreement they’re eschewing that in favour of a clear head. Far better to discuss this sort of thing without the excuse of drunken fantasy.

Q drinks his own tea thirstily, not caring that it’s far from ideal. Talking at length like this is far from normal for him. He’s half a mind to go get a glass of water, only that would involve moving.

Eve breaks the silence casually, casting a much-appreciated veil of normality over her words. “Only you, dear, would complain about superpowers.”

“They’re not exactly helpful ones. It’s not super-speed, or flying, or the proportionate strength of a spider – ”

“Yes, control of life and death, no possible applications there.”

“Bond was a bloody accident. I still don’t even know how I did it, let alone – ” And he stops himself there, if only because he realises that he doesn’t know how he was going to end that sentence, or even how he wants to. Let alone what? _Why_ he did it? Whether he’d have ever chosen to do it?

If somebody had told him about this – had so much as mentioned in passing that a poor choice of words and some unknown extra Ingredient X could lead to immortality – would he have ever decided in cold blood to bestow that on James Bond?

Heat of the moment; fluke of the universe. That’s all it was. That’s all that caused this mess. Remove one of them, and would the whole thing have been averted? Is that what he wants? Is that what he’d do, if the opportunity arose to have time rewritten?

“Would you do the same for me?”

He looks up at her; squints because his glasses are still somewhere near her table. “Do what?”

Another brush through his hair, down to cup his chin. “If I was dying, would you try to stop it?”

“Of course.” Possibly he’s supposed to make some grand gesture with that – jump to his feet and strike a heroic pose, organise a swelling soundtrack, swear it on his father’s sword or somesuch rubbish – but the idea of any other response is just so obviously wrong. In fact, that’s just it: it’s obvious. So he says it as such.

She’s smiling. He can’t see that, but he recognises it in her voice. “Even if it was the same thing you’ve done to Bond?”

“Especially if that was the case.”

Quite simply, a world without Eve Moneypenny doesn’t seem to have much longer left to live itself.

“Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why’? Is that any way to react to an offer of immortality?”

“Oh, so now you’re offering?”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

“Sweetie – ”

“Don’t call me that,” he grumbles, knowing it’ll go ignored but determined to put it out there nevertheless.

“ – if you think this was about me manoeuvring for a shot at forever, then you don’t know me half as well as you think you do.”

“Nobody ever does. Isn’t that sort of the point of a secret service? Did you know Bond likes cats?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“Because it’s not in his file. You need to stop relying on computers so much, love.” _Love_ is not that much better than _sweetie_ , but what the hell, he’ll take what he can get.

“I was under the impression I have this job precisely because of computers.” He paused, then added, “That and my predecessor getting murdered by an act of terrorism.” He refers to the incident the way he always does: calmly, precisely, devoid of any emotions except dry resignation and perhaps a trace of humour, depending on the context. Q Branch roughly divides into those who ignore this and those who visibly flinch – or, as he sees it, Tier One and Tier Two. Favouritism is alive and thriving.

Needless to say, Eve is very much Tier One.

Lazily, Q muses, “I wonder if he had to put up with the home invasions as well.”

Eve’s hand stills momentarily, before reluctantly coming back to life when he half-consciously pushes up against it. (He really should stop picking up habits from his cats.) “James was in your house.”

“Several times. Bit unnerving really, waking up to an undead assassin in your room. You’re not sure if he’s going to just kill you or eat your brains to boot.”

“Oh, love,” she says fondly, in the precise tone of voice to indicate that Q is an idiot. She does not follow up on that point, rather letting them lapse temporarily into silence. That’s probably for the best.

After a few minutes of just sitting, Eve still sipping at her tea and Q more comfortable and relaxed than he has been for weeks, Eve observes,“You seem very certain that you’d do it to me, if you could.”

“You’re my friend,” he tells her, simply and bluntly. “You’re the best person I know. I love you, in the non-romantic sense, obviously; you’re funny, you’re practical, you have the decency not to look bored when I get a bit specialised.” Eve is smiling at him, possibly indulgently, but he doesn’t miss her muttered repeat of the phrase ‘a bit’. “Why wouldn’t I want you to live forever?”

Her sweet smile is dimpling, the lines defining the move from affection into amusement, but she doesn’t laugh in his face. Her eyes seem a little bright, which only adds to his confusion as he tries to remember what that means, and her hand’s stilled again, leaving him with the sense that he might have done something wrong but with no idea precisely what.

Finally she says, “Never grow up, Q. I mean it.”

Instantly he flares up, sitting up despite the sudden chill so that he can properly level a glare at her. “I’m not a bloody child – ”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“ – I’m almost thirty, for fuck’s sake, why does everybody act like I’m still seventeen – ” 

“Q,” Eve says sharply, cutting him off mid-rant if not doing a thing to halt the rage, “I’m not calling you a child. We both work for MI6; we both carry some measure of daily responsibility for theft and murder – we work in espionage, love. If it weren’t for your sudden brush with the supernatural, you would have heard James _die_ and, no doubt, endlessly tortured yourself with whether you could have stopped it. 

“This is not a job for the innocent. It’s a job that turns you bitter and cynical. You only have to look at James for that.” Q winces involuntarily. “Which is why I say: never grow up, dear.”

They watch each other. For all that she insisted otherwise, Q still feels so very young, at the edge of the void of realising just how ignorant you are. Eve isn’t all that much older than him; perhaps that’s what working out in the field does to you.

He breaks the moment, looking away to better guzzle down his tea, as if he’s trying to swallow the feeling of cowardice as well. By the time he glance back, Eve’s expression has turned far less grave, and a weight on his chest eases. Slowly the conversation gathers itself once more, through commentary on grand speeches and the number of visits to the kettle in a single evening. The weight lifts a little, Eve also seeming more comfortable when allowed to rest in her specialist area of light teasing. Not for the first time, Q reflects on what a good pair she and Bond would make. For now he ignores the fact that the rest of the world wouldn’t survive it.

Save for the new barbs regarding superpowers, the conversation’s previous iteration rears its head only the once, as a warm flat and warm company and feeling relaxed for the first time in weeks take their toll and Q finds himself drifting. From previous experience, he knows that Eve has no intention of letting him make his way home, preferring as she does to ensure one good night’s sleep.

“I mean it,” he slurs against his pillow, wandering mind admitting that this is better than the sofa. “If I knew how, I’d do it to you in a heartbeat.”

“If that’s the case – ”

“Of course it is, why would I say it otherwise? You’re better at scheming and deceit than me, Eve, you know that.”

“And I rely on it thoroughly. But since you claim it _is_ the case, then perhaps you need to start asking yourself why you’d do it to James.”

He protests, “It was an accident.”

“Q,” she says, ruffling his hair affectionately but her voice full of the confidence in a winning gambit, “you’re no doubt familiar with this phrase, and given that it’s been applied not just to James but to you too, separately and, I can tell you in strict confidence, together, I really do think it bears some consideration.

“There is such a thing as ‘an accident waiting to happen’.”

\----------

The next day Q opens his door to find Bond, freshly returned from the Middle East, who’s arrayed himself with his usual instinctive comfort in the armchair facing the door, Stelmaria stretched lazily in his lap.

“Ah, Mr Bond,” Q says, for want of anything else, letting the door _click_ closed behind him, “I’ve been expecting you.”

“The feeling’s mutual.” 

Q stifles a yawn, moving out of Heisenberg's way lest he claw his way past. “Eve knows.”

Bond looks up from where he’s scratching behind Stelmaria’s ears. It really is quite appalling, the way she shows such a clear preference for him. Still, that’s cats for you: no accounting for taste.

“I told her,” Q goes on, letting himself fall back on what really is a very over-stuffed armchair. Bond didn’t ask, but he has this way of asking questions without actually asking them out loud which is annoying but apparently also rather effective. Or maybe Q is just the type who likes explaining things out loud. “So that’s another pair of eyes.”

“Did she have any ideas?”

Q considers discussing the matter. Then again, he’s not sure there’s anything from the conversation last night which he altogether wants to discuss. It feels as though he spends all of his time lately talking about this, or desperately trying not to talk about it when he can’t suggest over the monitored comms that Bond just walks straight through a gunfight since it’ll get him to the target faster, and he’s just getting so tired. The nice thing about Eve was how she could just let it be, once she’d made her own points.

Besides, the main breakthrough last night had actually been the moment he’d had to lie to her – Eve, of all people. Before the conversation had taken that unsettlingly personal turn, she’d asked him whether he had any suspicions about what might be so remarkable about himself. Honestly, he couldn’t believe it took him until then for the penny to drop.

However, if he doesn’t want to mention it to Eve, then he’d damned if he’ll give Bond the privilege.

Instead he announces, “I was actually just going to watch a film, 007. You know, those things which carry an uncanny resemblance to your life.”

Bond shows no sign of moving, nor of reacting to the barb. “What kind?” he inquires warily, as if probing the details of a villain’s master plan.

Delightedly, Q realises that Bond has no intention of running. He suspects that might have something to do with Stelmaria, who was after all named for having an uncanny resemblance to a miniature snow leopard and has all the haughty entitlement and hidden blood lust you might expect. Small wonder Bond likes her. “How’s your knowledge of Star Wars?”

“Seen all three,” Bond informs him smugly as if to say ‘is that the best you can do?’ Q ponders correcting him. On second thoughts, he’ll leave what innocence Bond has left intact.

“Indiana Jones?”

“All three again. You do you realise you just winced twice?”

“You live in a happier world. Harry Potter?”

“Does anything important happen after the fourth one?” At the look on Q’s face, he explains, “You’d be surprised what you have to know for a cover.”

“I’m certainly surprised you bothered to do the reading.” Whilst this is undeniably a great opportunity, it occurs to Q that it might be better to play the long game. After all, if Bond is so insistent on showing up here on a regular basis, it might be best not to undermine the possibility of a repeat. “I’m just going to put on Indiana Jones, all right? You never know, it might give us a few pointers.”

\----------

As many who leave home quickly discover, you might not live with your parents anymore, but that does not exempt you from semi-regular contact. 

Q and his mother have been going to the same restaurant for years, to the point where Q already knows how their small-talk will go, revolving like lazy planets around what’s changed, what they’ve brought back (or should), what’s stayed the same, endless little observations recording the progress of time if not entirely agreeing with it. Just standing here, waiting for her, he’s already taking notes, letting his eyes rove over the slightly altered table layouts, the new painting at the back which aims to elevate the traditional family-owned business to something higher-end. 

Really, it’s depressing, the way it’s clearly been ‘found out’, the clientele shifting upwards in the wages bracket. The script is writing itself in Q’s head: the chip on his shoulder about how in London the pushy businessmen take over everything and never appreciate it. What can he say, he’s a victim of his upbringing that way. Just take the guy who’s just moved in front of him, all perfect suit and shoes, practically screaming about how much money he’s spent on his clothes, who even does that, and why is he just standing there like he’s watching Q –

His inner tirade fizzles out as it crashes into reality.

Bond observes, “You’re not that observant off-the-clock, are you?”

Comically wide-eyed, Q can only stare at him in stunned silence.

“I know you’re not waiting for Moneypenny,” Bond continues, “so either we have another lunch date I wasn’t aware of or there’s someone else.”

The surreal suggestion of jealousy implied at least surprises a response out of him. “I could be eating alone.”

“Except you’ve been waiting for someone.” Bond gives him the cocky grin he apparently reserves for when he knows a person has momentarily forgotten that he is a spy, he is capable of making deductions, he just likes blowing stuff up more. It’s grating, right up until it isn’t and it becomes something else altogether. 

Which is precisely the distraction Q doesn’t need right now. It doesn’t take the head of Q Branch to foresee the impending car crash. “Very impressive, 007. In the future though, do you think you could save your stalking for after hours?”

“I’m between missions,” Bond reminds him, with the flirtatious smile he must be levelling at everything with a pulse right now, “this is after hours.”

A treacherous flush, clearly of anger, creeps its way up Q’s neck. He stands, eye to eye, mouth set in a line of determination. “Bond, it is none of your business what I do when I’m not trying to sort out your messes. I am your superior, for all that you ignore that fact, and as such, I am ordering you to leave me alone.”

Bond’s eyes narrow slightly, assessing the situation. Q continues to meet them, starting to smile himself, shoulders relaxing from stiff near-embarrassment to something more confident. Arrogance is something he hasn’t fallen back on for some time, and, for a moment, he feels like he might be in control.

“Dorian?”

For all that he fights it – for all that he tries not to give anything away, how the hell do his agents make this look so easy – Q can feel his smile stiffen into something painfully fake. If he needed any proof, he only has to compare it with the slow dawning pleasure which succeeds Bond’s initial frown. Quite frankly, there’s something more than a little bit evil about it, but maybe that’s just the captive part of him talking.

Q could just ignore her. Really, he could. Long enough to get Bond the fuck out of there.

“Sorry I’m late, Dorian, you know what the traffic’s like.” 

Except that plan totally ignores the force of nature at work here. A fatal miscalculation.

He winces before forcing his face to comply with demands, the smile suddenly far more pained, more reluctant to show itself, as he turns to greet her. The knowledge of what he is about to give away – has already done so – makes the words catch, turning his voice strange. “Mum. Hi.”

Truly, Q doesn’t need to see Bond’s expression. He can feel the waves of triumph just fine.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. You know full well what the Tube’s like at lunchtime, and we are getting the first proper tourists. Bloody nightmare. Now, just give me a moment to find Harry.”

That’s how long they’ve been coming here. Not only does his mother know the guy’s name, but it never even occurs to her that it might be somebody else.

When she turns away, Bond murmurs in his ear – leaning in close, Q can practically feel the breath against his skin, it’s making him flush and he really bloody hates that – “Dorian?”

“I will eviscerate you.” The advantage of that particular phrasing being that when his mother glancing around, it’s not that hard to smile at the same time.

“You can try.”

“007, you will turn around and you will walk away. Now.”

Before Bond can respond, his mother is back, which only wins her a few points, because her first question is, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I know your name?”

“Bond,” is the inevitable answer, and Q can’t help but mouth along with, “James Bond.” 

“Well, Mr Bond, I’ve asked and, if you can spare a moment, Harry says it’s no trouble if you want to eat with us.”

“He can’t spare a moment, he’s _very busy_ ,” Q says, perhaps a little too quickly, judging by the way her eyes narrow. “Besides, he _wouldn’t want to intrude_ ,” he adds through gritted teeth, glaring pointedly at Bond’s beatific smile.

“Oh, you’re welcome to join us,” she says, with the universal smile of a mother determined to grill her son’s friends for intimate details behind his back.

“No, he’s not,” Q informs both of them, at the same time that Bond (of course) replies, “I’d be delighted to.”

“I will kill you in your sleep,” Q informs his agent – _his_ agent, he is Bond’s bloody superior, this is ridiculous (albeit hardly unprecedented) – once his mother’s back is turned. 

Bond smiles at him – a far more characteristic smug, sly flash of teeth than the charming facsimile he’d presented before – and invites, “You can try.”

\----------

 _007 talking to my mother_ , he fires off under the table.

Eve’s reply takes slightly longer than he’d expected. He suspects she was laughing too hard to be able to text properly.

_Meeting the parents already? You are moving fast._

He scowls before he can stop himself, and he’s halfway through a reply – so, about five seconds – when he hears an admonishing, “Dorian.”

Guiltily – not that he is, not one jot, only his mother and specifically _that voice_ have this very odd effect on him, as if he really is the little kid 007 used to enjoy comparing him to – he looks up to see his mother holding out her hand imperiously. “Stop texting under the table.”

Sometimes it’s remarkable, the way your parents and those old family traditions make you regress. For them – the two of them – it’s always been the admonition of _stop texting_. Sometimes it really is texting; sometimes it’s something that looks an awful lot like texting because people can be very narrow-minded indeed when it comes to imagining what on Earth a teenage boy could be doing constantly on his phone; sometimes he’s not even holding a phone but rather an i-Pod or a tablet or remote control or pretty much anything electronic (not always, but nine times out of ten). The exact details don’t matter though, only the code: ‘stop fiddling and pay attention to the human beings’. Sticking to ‘texting’ gives them the veneer of normality. If Q’s reticence regarding his own genius when he first started at MI6 (after he’d been hauled in but before his predecessor painstakingly lured him out into the glorious sunlight of justified arrogance) had seemed unnatural in that den of egos, it’s only how he’d been raised. As proud as she undeniably has remained of his abilities, Cathleen has always impressed upon him the need to hide. As if she was in danger of being discovered, not him.

In hindsight, he should thank her for such a firm grounding in espionage.

His excuse for the sigh and roll of his eyes as he makes a show of reluctantly handing it over – the regression to teenagerhood as well as actually giving the phone over at all – is the long history of this happening at every birthday party and parents’ evening and enforced children’s socialising event in his life. Sometimes muscle memory is your own worst enemy.

“Thank you,” she says primly, placing the phone in her own pocket, where its buzzing or flashing lights can’t distract him from social functions.

Unfortunately, that also means no distraction from Bond’s expression. Apparently his judgment of the environment means that his sadistic glee is a little less restrained than if his mother had been, say, the Prime Minister. However, Q is just relieved to prove able to fight down the incredible urge to stick out his tongue, even if his glare is increasingly too familiar to produce much visible impact.

Bond is immortal, Q reminds himself. That means he can do whatever he wants and there is no way he’s going to get in trouble for killing 007. If nothing else is going to get him through this meal, the thought of sweet revenge should do the trick.

Perhaps it’s just Q’s imagination, but when he meets Bond’s eyes a moment later, the agent’s smug amusement meeting his own scheming bloodlust, he thinks he sees Bond’s pupils dilate.

Except that would mean he’s watching closely enough to notice something as small as that, which is not only highly unlikely, but also kind of inappropriate in present company.

Quickly averting his eyes and settling lower in his seat as if he really is as old as people keep assuming, Q determines to return to resigning himself to the pure horror of the situation with which he has been presented. It’s not even as if he can run damage control, since technically speaking there is no damage to control – as impossible as that sounds, considering one of the participants. The problem is that, of course, James Bond is more than capable of becoming one of the most charming people known to humankind. Q was already aware of this, having been the oh-so-lucky voice in Bond’s ear and hence also eternal eavesdropper on perhaps too many missions, but somehow things seem rather different when instead of chatting up the girlfriend of an international arms smuggler, Bond’s target is instead Q’s own mother. Their conversation revolves less around extracting information about weapon drops and more about discussing Q’s childhood pet dog.

Q’s ridiculous metabolism means he really shouldn’t drink much in the middle of the day, when he does have work to get back to, and especially when he is in fact here on a mission. He has already downed two glasses of wine and only now has the main course arrived.

His mother is not being taken in by any of this. She can’t be. His mother is one of the most canny individuals he’s ever met and surely she can sense how incredibly unsettling a charming Bond truly is. Q just wishes she’d be a bit more obvious about it and not smile so much.

Then again, at least Bond has a little more experience lying about his job, and by extension Q’s. He picks up on the not-technically-a lie of ‘working for the government’ with effortless ease, expanding and elaborating without a moment’s hesitation, and once again, fuck, Q has to admit that there is maybe a reason why, despite the endless trail of destruction and near-misses with regard to international incidents, 007 remains MI6’s longest-serving and most successful Double O agent.

His mother giggles coyly at another piece of thinly-veiled flirtation which Q didn’t even know could exist in the harsh light of non-cinematic reality, and Q pours himself a third glass.

“How could you never mention you had a friend like this one?” Cathleen admonishes him – and there’s no question about, it is an admonishment. Bond smiles at him triumphantly, the familiar 007 twinkle over the wineglass, and Q’s own almost shatters under his grip. Given that he can’t openly glare, Q hastily imagines three new death traps and derives some comfort from that instead.

To his mother, he explains, “Bond’s more of a colleague. You know I don’t like talking about work.” He grants himself a petty point for not even lying.

“Well, I think that’s a shame. He’s quite charming,” _He’s also right there,_ Q thinks, “and it does an old woman good to be charmed once in a while.”

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Bond says, because of course he does. “You don’t look a day over – ”

“Oh, please don’t,” Cathleen interrupts with a laugh, giving Q at least some hope. “When you have a son who’s almost thirty, trust me, Mr Bond, ‘old’ is the only word for it.”

The fact that Bond finally has some sort of independent confirmation that Q is not a bloody child isn’t nearly enough to stop Q squirming in mortification and wishing that either he or Bond were dead.

Only when he finally surfaces does he realise that goodbyes are being said. Apparently Bond isn’t staying for dessert, and Q can’t believe his luck, whilst wishing he hadn’t missed how it had happened. He can’t imagine Bond wanting to miss out on any of this, yet his mother frankly seems to have been enjoying it just as much. Still, he’s hardly going to object, and if Bond only seems slightly amused by Q’s idea of a firm handshake, it’s the thought that counts. The thought in question being how very much Q is going to make him pay for this.

Finally, with a courteous nod and _oh God did he just kiss her hand how is he even real_ , Bond makes his usual understated exit. Q counts at least four women and two men inspecting various parts of the departing anatomy – he also notes the areas in question – and sighs to himself.

Cathleen watches Bond go as well, smiling softly to herself, before Q suddenly finds himself pinned by a gaze turned suddenly steely. “Now, dear, I know you didn’t call me to make small talk with your mother, with or without your charming friend. Out with it.” It’s not threatening at all: only the dropping of the disguise she assumes so naturally in company – something Q remembers a little belatedly. 

For all that she never fails to strip back his mental maturity, Q really does love his mother.

“But – Bond!”

“As I said, very charming. I’ve known few men who can turn it on as easily and competently as that. You must pass on my compliments on the performance. Very well done indeed.”

He stares at her. “That was one of the most excruciating moments of my life.”

“And I’m fully aware of the fact. You always have let your guard drop when you’re embarrassed, whether you’ve been caught doing something you shouldn’t, or when I finally get to meet someone who can give away a thing or two about you.”

Q protests, “You’ve met Eve.”

“As I said, someone who can give things away. It takes ego when it comes to your job, dear; Eve hardly qualifies. Now,” she goes on, before he can even begin to consider any sort of response, “don’t deflect. You know I can always tell. Why are we enjoying a lovely lunch on this particular occasion?”

Her gaze is steady, inviting but piercing as well. Cathleen has never been a woman to suffer fools gladly, or any kind of deceit or beating around the bush. She taught him the little deception he’s capable of without stuttering, at the same time she taught him that it can never work on her. So he doesn’t even try. 

“What do I ask you every 1st January?”

Her eyes narrow and her face closes off. “It’s April, dear. I thought even you would have noticed that.”

From someone else, it might have been an insult. As it is, he’s not denying that there’s an insulting element, but he doesn’t bridle the way he would at work. Eve has mastered this as well, and he’s starting to wonder whether Bond isn’t headed the same way: the understanding that this isn’t an attack, but something else, be it defence or affection or diversion.

“Special circumstances,” he tells her, getting his usual pleased thrill from assuming an air of mystery, however temporary. Before she can object, he plunges right in with it.

“Tell me about Dad.”

Cathleen lets her eyes fall closed and sighs deeply.

This is what he hasn’t been telling Bond or Eve. This is what occurred to him nights ago; this is why he wanted to meet his mother, regardless of what he might have claimed.

Q has been over the facts, time and again, forming theories and suppositions (and incidentally extensively upgrading his security at the same time), and the undeniable advantage he has over the two of them is the confidence in this single truth: that the only real mystery about him, where something like this might lurk, is in his parentage. His mother, granted, might be hiding something, most likely is, yet something like a missing father is too large a hole to pass by unnoticed and unchecked. Q’s read enough fantasy to know how this works.

“Care to tell me why it can’t wait?”

“Because for once I actually need an answer. Now.”

“Why?”

“I told you, special circumstances.”

“That’s not telling me anything, that’s avoiding the question.”

“I learnt from the best.”

“I’ll try not to take that as an insult.”

“Mum,” he sighs, letting a little vulnerability slip through voluntarily, “I need to know. I already suspect, but I’m not entirely sure what it is I’m suspecting.”

“Don’t be farcical, Dorian. Life’s too short.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, under his glasses, and forces out, “Dad wasn’t as…normal as you’ve let me assume, was he? I mean,” he continues, before she can start misleading him, “he was someone…something, maybe, a little more, well,” God, it hurts, “supernatural?”

He chances a look. Cathleen’s face is blank – a little too carefully blank. It’s not an admission in itself, but it hardly helps any denial, and Q feels a small swell of something perhaps akin to hope even as his world slowly falls apart.

“Are you certain of that?”

“I’m not certain of anything. But the only way recent events make sense is if the world really isn’t what I thought it was, and that means Dad wasn’t some layabout who vanished off the moment he got you pregnant.”

“Well, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.” 

She takes a sip of her wine. When Harry comes to offer the dessert menu, she waves him off, asking only for the bill. Harry hesitates, but complies, moving away without questioning her. Silence lingers in his wake, and when he returns, Q notes twice the amount of complimentary chocolates weighing the paper down. It’s the first time in almost twenty years that they haven’t stayed for dessert.

He jumps when Cathleen speaks. “There is one thing, though. It wasn’t the last time I saw him.” She gathers herself slowly, grandly, to her feet. Q follows suit, slipping a higher contribution to the tip as he does so. 

“He left something for you.” 

This is why Q remains unmoved by Bond’s idea of the grand exit. His mother already perfected it.

\----------

“I expect you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.”

Eve observes from an overstuffed armchair, “All two of us,” and Q deflates a little. 

“Can’t you indulge me just this once?”

Leaning coolly against the wall, eternally posing for a high-class fashion magazine (occasionally dipping into the lower end of the industry, Q thinks cattily), Bond comments, “We might never stop.” Q closes his eyes tightly for a moment, trying not to linger on possible meanings and especially not the low inviting tone of Bond’s voice, and opens them again to see that Eve’s smile has turned very knowing indeed.

Hastily moving on, he informs them, “I found out why this happened.”

Being, respectively, current and former field agents, neither Bond nor Eve noticeably react – noticeable, that is, to someone unaccustomed to the type. Unfortunately, Q’s job demands that he is accustomed, and automatically he registers and files away how Eve’s teasing eyes harden, how Bond’s back straightens, how in both cases their former casualness becomes a disguise designed to set others off-guard.

It depresses Q sometimes what being good at his job actually entails.

“From whom?” Bond queries, good education always lurking even when you forget about it.

Q forces a smile. “As a matter of fact, from my mother.” He watches the various recollections and calculations flickering across Bond’s face and allows himself to enjoy the view. It is, after all, far better than focusing on the alternative.

Eve comments, “So it wasn’t just so James could meet the family?” and it’s only much later that Q fully appreciates it as a distraction. The conversations he has with Bond are meandering and maybe ten times longer than they ever have to be because the two of them seem to get distracted by everything about each other. It’s hardly an inefficient way of doing things. 

Here and now, though, he makes a face at her of the sort favoured by six-year-olds who have the excuse of not being old enough to have any wit with which to respond. It’s one step away from sticking his tongue out.

It heads off one deviation, however. Hiding never works around Eve.

“Did you know I never knew my father?”

“I wasn’t aware that I cared,” is Bond’s typically empathic response. For someone who so recently got Q to squirm in his seat, he seems pretty on edge.

Before Eve can mount some sort of defence, Q simply replies, “Normally I’d agree. Unfortunately, 007, this is actually relevant. Believe me when I say that that is the only reason why I would be forcing you to listen to this.” It’s true: just mentioning the matter of his father makes his stomach twist and complain, even when you ignore what Q’s learnt. Abandonment issues, perhaps, except for the most part those were over and done with when a secondary school pupil realised he could just prove himself better in any way that mattered. Now, Q just hates mentioning something that always makes people judge him on terms he didn’t choose.

“I have tried to find him, on numerous occasions; MI6 did so as well, first to gather intelligence and then as the more standard background check.” If Bond is unfamiliar with the circumstances surrounding Q’s employment, Q is certainly not going to be the one to tell him. Especially not at this moment. “He’s always been dismissed as a ghost – impressively so, at that.” He can’t help the wince at his accidental choice of words, and resigns himself to knowing that both of them saw it. “I knew MI6 wouldn’t find anything through online databases unless he’d suddenly surfaced since I’d last checked after not existing for his entire life. I was a little surprised to find out they’d run a DNA check as well, and particularly when it only came back with results for my mother’s side of the family.”

Bond frowns. “Doesn’t seem likely. Not unless they all kept squeaky-clean for their entire lives.” His tone suggests just how much credence he gives to that, living as he does in a world where if someone doesn’t seem guilty you can’t have done enough digging yet.

Q appreciates that he didn’t say it’s impossible. “Quite. Apparently there were a few hits which could indicate, say, a common father, but supposedly there’s something unusual enough to muddy the waters. I must admit that I follow technology far better than biology.”

“Careful, Q,” Bond warns, “that almost sounded like you don’t know something.”

“Almost being the key word.”

“You said this was relevant?” Eve reminds him. She doesn’t look bored – if anything, she looks a little sorry for him, a slight turn to her mouth Q notices precisely because he’s so sensitive about those sorts of things. It’s enough to rankle; enough to force him to get to the point.

Q sits back in his chair, rubbing at a spot on his trousers which might in fact be nothing. “The only person who definitely knows something has always been my mum, and she’s never been particularly forthcoming on the subject. She might never have told me, if I hadn’t been having a few suspicions lately about what might possibly cause…well, you,” he says lamely, indicating Bond, who stays curiously silent.

“In my defence, it’s not the sort of thing that occurs to you straightaway – especially since it doesn’t quite fit the standard narrative.”

Eve obediently prompts, “What narrative?”

And here it is: the impossible thing. Another one, at any rate, and yet if Bond shooting himself in the head shattered reality around him, this next truth shatters Q himself.

He lets his eyes fall shut. “What happens when a human has a child with a god.”

It’s nice there, in the dark. He doesn’t have to see their faces. It’s quiet too, which is another blessing. Neither of them laughs, or starts yelling, both of which he considered to be possibilities. The silence just stretches on.

It occurs to him that perhaps it’s that he doesn’t dare look. Does he really want to see their faces? Does he really want to confirm that yes, he really did say that; that yes, he believes it as well, because it makes sense, because it’s the only theory that has fitted, because a woman who has never been fanciful in his life (save for the usual motherly lies) told him with a straight face?

From somewhere far away, he hears Eve repeat, “A god.” There’s no trace of emotion in her voice, something he’s sure she waited until she could be certain of. Well, it doesn’t sound judgemental, he’ll give her that on the comforting front.

Still resting his head against his hand, propped up on the chair arm, he nods. “To be more specific, the god of death. Hence the…” He waves vaguely in Bond’s direction – assuming he hasn’t moved, of course.

“Do you mind looking at me when you’re talking about me?”

The complaint doesn’t sit right in Bond’s voice. Not that Bond can’t sound petulant – he most certainly can, then has the nerve to accuse Q of being young – but this isn’t how he does it. However, it does make Q open his eyes again, to see that whilst Eve seems to be struggling to figure out the appropriate response, Bond has settled for the standard unimpressed vague glower with a dash of cynicism to add interest.

Q raises his eyebrows – _I’m looking at you now_ – and Bond’s expression does not alter.

“So, whatever you did to James…” Eve starts awkwardly.

“I believe the traditional term is a _blessing_ ,” Q finishes, leaning on the word whilst glaring at the person in question.

Bond refuses to catch fire. It’s aggravating. “I didn’t ask for it.”

“If we’ve learnt anything from this, it’s that you really are an ungrateful twat.” As ever, Q tries not to lapse into that kind of language: he got the idea in his head a while ago that it in some way meant he was less intelligent, and even now the satisfaction is at war with his own ego. It’s just that Bond really does bring out the worst in him – and the divine, it now seems. How about that?

Eve questions, a little too loud, “And do you have a plan of how to reverse that blessing?” She barely stumbles over the world. Secretarial skills win again: that knack for instant familiarity with new vocabulary.

“At the moment, my plan consists of asking him.”

After a rather sudden silence, Eve leans forward and asks cautiously, “How, exactly?” She then adds, oh-so-helpfully, “I can think of a few ways that trying to literally summon Death might backfire.”

“We could always get 007 to do it,” Q mutters, still feeling a little stung. Somehow knowing a bit more of the ‘how’ actually makes Bond’s reaction worse. Whilst it remains something of a cosmic accident, it’s also gained the slight aura of a present hurled back in his face, to say nothing of the fact that now Q’s bloody erstwhile father has got involved and there is the small matter of _what this actually means about Q_ which he’s been frantically dodging around so far and doesn’t intend to stop doing so any time soon. “But no. It seems he left a means of getting in touch, should I ever wish to or should my mother ever decide I should have the option.”

“You almost sound angry at her.”

“I’m not,” Q lies, except that’s not entirely accurate either. 

His mother has kept something this huge from him his entire life; she’s dodged his questions and made a game, a _family tradition_ , out of refusing to tell him. Every second he’s been alive – and technically before he was even born – she’s known who he really is. She’s known that logic is laughable, that the fabric of reality isn’t the material everybody assumes, that everything Q’s built his life around is, from a certain point of view, utterly and entirely wrong.

Then again, up until a few weeks ago his precise parentage hasn’t been relevant. In fact, Q’s gone out of his way to avoid making it so. He has never ever wanted to be defined by his father. The world as he’s always known it – the world that _matters_ – spins on regardless of whether it’s right or wrong about the more supernatural elements of it. He was only able to call Eve and Bond here when he’d realised that really, what could she have said? Besides simply _knowing_ – and granted, that is something Q usually values rather highly, browsing Wikipedia and trading trivia with his team for the simple delight of learning – besides that, what was there to gain from telling him that he isn’t, well – 

“She gave me this,” he announces, a little too loud, picking up a yellowing letter from the coffee table before him. With some small satisfaction, he notices that Bond narrows his eyes but says nothing. Yes, Q will admit that he deliberately put it right there in front of them, on top of a pile of far more recent post, just because he could. It’s been an interesting few days, so he figures that he’s allowed.

Sliding open the flap – really, except for the absolutely inevitable signs of age, it’s survived remarkably well – he carefully removes a rectangle of card, about the length of his middle finger and a muted shade of white just giving in to yellow. Words and numbers are printed across it, still legible today: a station, a charge, a fare type.

Bond and Eve both come in closer to inspect it, as Q carefully places it back on the table. Given that at least two people in the room are currently (and, Q’s case, almost always) avowed Londoners, it’s not long at all before realisation dawns.

“So, your father left you a Travelcard?”

“No, actually.” Q taps the offending scrap of card. “Those only came in in 1983 – this is from before then.” Google to the rescue again. He hadn’t been surprised to find that this ticket was unusual for more than its age, for two main reasons. 

First, there was no date. By implication of it being presented to him, that might mean it was still technically valid, should he find a machine which would recognise it. Which he doubted.

Second, the station from which it was allegedly a return.

“’North End’,” Bond read out over his shoulder, because personal space was for normal people. “Never heard of it.”

It’s more than a little petty, but Q still mutters, “A little more obscure than Granborough?” and derives a pleasure that is all to do with nastiness at Bond’s stillness. Still, he can feel the waves of disapproval from Eve’s seat, making him clear his throat and elaborate, louder, “That’s because it doesn’t exist. Technically.”

He glanced up to see Bond’s eyebrows raised, evidently awaiting an explanation. 

“They started working on it around the turn of the century – between Hampstead and Golders Green – only the plans fell through before they connected it to the surface. In the Second World War they used it to store secret archives, and after that it was part of civil defence preparations if the Cold War ever became…less cold. It’s emergency evacuation for the Tube now.”

“Somebody had fun on Wikipedia,” Eve observes with a wry smile.

“It also would have been the deepest station in the network,” Q agrees.

“But it’s not actually a station,” Bond interjects.

“That’s what I said.”

“So,” Bond grinds out, “how is this supposed to help us?”

“Apparently I’m supposed to know what to do with it.”

“Except you don’t.”

“Thank you, 007, for once again stating the bloody obvious. You truly are invaluable in that capacity.”

“No need to get your claws out because you don’t know something.”

“Well, obviously I’m supposed to use it to get to, well, wherever the hell he is – ”

“Possibly apt phrasing,” Eve comments, and he smiles as he notices the flash of concern in her face.

“ – only the station doesn’t exist.” He pauses, then amends, “Strictly. It’s there for evacuations and whatnot, but any trains are just passing through to somewhere else. I know, I went down there.”

Shit. He didn’t mean to admit that. Not yet, anyway. 

Bond is the first to recover, with the steady voice that conceals more danger than any audible anger ever could. “On your own.” 

At least he has the decency not to bother making it a question. There aren’t a whole lot of ways of construing the meaning of _I went down there_. So Q doesn’t bother confirming it. “As soon as I found out there was surface access. I would’ve thought you of all people would be familiar with the concept of recon.”

“By _trained agents_ ,” and now Bond’s voice is dropping into a low growl and it occurs to Q that he might have misjudged the situation, even if he’s not entirely sure what factors he missed. 

Still, as ever the supposition that Q somehow can’t handle himself makes him bristle, so he bites out, “What do you imagine might have been down there? Hordes of killer zombies, perhaps? Silva’s reanimated corpse? For fuck’s sake, 007,” he lapses into stronger language and doesn’t regret it, “it’s the fucking _Tube_.”

Bond looks ready to lash out, until Eve hastily steps in. “What did you find, then?”

Not breaking eye contact – Bond’s angry, really and quite unexpectedly angry, Q has apparently stumbled into something and he doesn’t know what and he doesn’t know _why_ – Q says, “ _Nothing_. Obviously.”

“Which means there has to be more to it.”

Bond answers before Q has a chance to do so. “Or the whole thing’s a bloody waste of time.” 

“Sorry, do you think there are monsters in every shadow or do you think it’s all a joke? You can’t have both.”

“It’s not your job to go throwing yourself into danger – ”

“You throwing yourself into danger is what got us into this.” Q can’t hold back the addendum, “As usual.”

“ _Boys_.”

Eve’s voice cuts through the discussion-cum-argument, even as Bond’s face twists into the closest thing Q’s seen to anger on him (it occurs to him that so far he’s only ever actually witnessed Bond as ‘highly vexed’). They glare at each other a moment longer, Q challenging and Bond fuming, before turning away as one towards a new focus.

Eve looks a little surprised to suddenly have their mutual attention. Still, being the wonderful woman she is, it’s hardly surprising that she soldiers on barely a moment later. “Well, you started this on the theory that this is how fantasy works, didn’t you, Q?”

Q can hear Bond’s scoff and carefully keeps his eyes fixed on Eve.

“So why not follow it through? You’ve got the magical dad, you’ve got the heroic journey, you’ve got the mystical object to get you into Moria – ”

“I’m starting to think you’re not taking this seriously.”

“ – so maybe you need the right door?”

Q doesn’t think he can be trusted with an expression right now. “If you come out with some sort of ‘if there’s a key, there must be a door’ nonsense, I’m leaving.”

“ _Think_ about it, dear. If the ridiculous comes for you, you might as well try to play along. Although,” Eve says brightly, clearly warming to the theme of torturing Q with the unbelievable irrationality of the turn his life has taken (Bond’s fault, all he can think, _Bond’s fault_ ), “you have been short-changed, you poor thing. By now you should have met an old mentor to sacrifice himself, an appalling piece of poetry passing for a prophecy, a mystic vision or two – ” 

She stops suddenly as he lets out a low groan of horrid realisation. “What?”

Wordlessly, he reaches into his pocket, and tosses a crumpled missive onto the table between them. Her eyebrows furrow as she reads, even though it consists of only three words, because they are three words which don’t make any bloody sense – except that they’re very quickly starting to.

Because Bond is from the land of exposition, he finds it necessary to read them out over Q’s shoulder. “Follow the tunnels’?”

“When did you write that?” Eve asks, and Q doesn’t bother to restrain a pre-emptive wince.

“I dreamt it.” He does his best to load these three words with as much irony and pure loathing as possible, even though it will never be enough, even though it is impossible to convey with mere words and inflection how much his blood boils and his mind rages at what’s been dragged into his life and is now trailing mud and misrule through what little logic the world had going for it.

Fortunately, not only does Eve look distinctly unimpressed – the physical embodiment of _are you fucking serious_ , if Q is any judge – but a glare behind him reveals that Bond shares the emotion, if not doubly so.

“You… _dreamt_ it,” he repeats, and it’s only Q’s own hatred of this turn of events that stops him from instinctively lashing out at that particular tone of Bond’s which is so perfectly designed to convey the maximum degree of subordinate disdain.

Eve instead chooses to focus on, “I said _when_.”

“A couple of nights ago.”

“When you decided this was something that needed fixing?”

“ _He_ decided,” Q reminds her, firmer than he’d intended.

“You agreed.”

“I felt bad! I just – ” He stops himself before anybody else can jump in, his eyes turning wide as the end of the sentence attempts to vanish out of sight.

Coolly, Bond asks, “You _pitied_ me?”

“I didn’t say that!” Q squawks, before realising the trap too late. “I mean – ”

“I don’t need your pity,” Bond growls. “I don’t need your charity. I want you to fix this, and then I never want to talk about it again.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“Because it is! If you ignore all of this… _this_ , about gods or _blessings_ , all I want is for you to put things back the way they were. I never asked you to do this, and I can assure you that I never would have. I don’t care what you do, just so long as it gets done.”

Q scoffs. “Because of course you have no interest in living forever. That’s something that holds no appeal for you whatsoever.”

“Correct,” Bond growls. “So glad we understand each other.”

“Trust me, 007, we don’t. The way I see it, you just miss being able to almost kill yourself every day.”

For a moment, he truly believes Bond is about to punch him. His face has gone dangerously still, those vivid blue eyes full of anger and – just behind – a composed promise of death; the set of the shoulders, the centre of gravity, Q’s witnessed those tells a thousand times. That’s his job, and from a distance he never fully appreciated what it’s like to have James Bond bearing down on you.

When he moves, Q flinches. 

Maybe he missed something when he instinctively screwed up his eyes, but when he looks again, Bond is gone. Leaping to his feet, Q makes it to the hallway just in time to have the sight of the door slamming shut.

It takes Q a moment to register that he did indeed just witness James Bond storming out of his flat. He wants to make some sort of comment in relation to Bond revealing his mental age, except when he turns to do so he quails before the force of Eve’s glare.

On the back foot and on the defensive, he protests, “You were supposed to be damage control!”

“Was I,” she states dryly, not a hint of a question mark for him to cling to. “So that was my fault?”

Q recognises a trap when he hears one. His mother does this all the time. Unfortunately, that experience only means that he can sigh and willingly resign himself to his fate with a helpless shrug. At least he can get the most neutral response this way.

Eve levels an accusing finger at him. “ _That_ was a fair example of why I said you two are an accident waiting to happen.”

Slumped over, suddenly lethargically despondent in Bond’s wake, Q returns to collapse bonelessly in his chair and ask, “You mean we haven’t yet?” When all she does is sigh herself – less weary, more despairingly – he elaborates, “Because I’m not sure if you mean the accidental immortality or the constant yelling anymore.”

“Both,” she snaps. “You two have been getting under each other’s skin since you met, and whilst it’s usually adorable, occasionally the shared obliviousness inevitably results in an explosion.”

There’s just too much in that sentence for Q to comprehend, so he just jokes, “That’s Bond for you.” The joke falls flat, and he’s not surprised.

“Q, you say you love me, and trust me, the feeling is mutual. The fact that I love you is why there is only so much of this I can take.”

“I don’t even know what ‘this’ is supposed to be.”

“Because you might have a genius level IQ, but that has never stopped anyone from being an idiot. Just the opposite, in fact.” Eve stands, making Q flinch and not even be ashamed of it. At least it makes her pause, with a distinctly sad turn to her mouth all of a sudden, before she walks over and takes a seat on the arm of his chair, running a comforting hand through his hair as he peers up at her. 

“I have heard,” she tells him gently, “the story of the first time the two of you met from both sides, and to be honest, neither of you comes off that well. The same could be said of how both of you are handling this, and not just what I just witnessed. 

“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, the way you get to each other. You need someone to take you down a peg or two – don’t interrupt me, love – ” Q obediently closes his mouth again, “ – and frankly James needs the same. I honestly think you help to keep him grounded as well, as unlikely as that sounds, which is why it honestly hurts a little to see you fighting like this.”

“It’s not like we never fight,” Q objects. “We’ve always been doing that.”

“But not like this. Which makes me wonder just what changed.”

Q tilts his head slightly, looking up at her over the rim of his glasses, regardless of the fact that he can’t actually see her expression that way. It’s the gesture that counts. “Well,” he suggests sarcastically, “007 is _immortal_ these days.”

He misses the scowl, but he can deduce it from the light smack to his head. “Idiot,” she informs him. “I meant besides that. Or because of it. Either. Both. Whichever actually gets through to you.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Eve.”

She lets her head drop. “You really don’t,” she agrees. Then she proposes, “Just let me ask one question.”

“All right.”

“Why do you think James is angry?”

Q stares blankly back at her. 

At least he knows it isn’t ‘because it’s 007’. As previously stated, he has never seen Bond like this. Unfortunately, there are just too many variables, and it’s not like 007 is easy to psychoanalyse. If he were, then maybe the shrinks in HR wouldn’t cry so much about setting him loose.

“I suppose,” he says slowly, “he doesn’t like not having control?” The feeling’s mutual in that respect. Q hates being ignorant more than anything, certainly, but not being in control ties into that considerably. Knowing things is the only way a scrawny pale kid in glasses from single figures has any power at all. As heady as the idea of controlling life and death undeniably is, the fact he can’t control it in any way is enough to make him sick. Yes, he waited until this evening to tell the two of them because he wanted to investigate the station, and there was a long-lost father and an earth-shattering revelation to deal with, but some of the intervening time was also spent trying not to panic about losing so much control, and frankly the psychological implications are something Q is trying very hard to avoid.

To the point where there is no way he is going to be telling even Eve any of that.

“007 might be petty enough to resent not being asked…” He can see in Eve’s eyes that neither of them think that’s the real reason, just as neither of them can deny it as a factor. “It’s possible he hates the supernatural involvement even more than me, although I seriously doubt it.” He shrugs. “It’s something he can’t shoot, that has to hurt.”

“You think that makes him angry?”

Something in Q snaps. “Or he’s just angry that I almost went off to the Underworld without him. 007’s funny like that.”

Eve recoils slightly; Q’s shoulder feels cold without her hand there. Still, as much as he might regret it, he glares up at her steadily, as she gets to her feet once more. He does nothing to break the silence as she pointedly collects her things, and all she’ll offer is the muttered “You two are ridiculous” before she shows herself out.

Q curls up in his chair and sulks. He’s not deluded enough to deny that that is precisely what he is doing; just the opposite, he takes a certain delight in it.

The same goes for when he resigns himself to the inevitable, retrieves Bond’s superior scotch from the cupboard, and alternates taking large pissed off swigs with giving the train ticket the finger.

\----------

The physical hangover passes with time and Alka Seltzer and a department on tiptoes (except for Jez and Gerty, who between them have secured a wealth of hangover cures in a single hour and coax him in with the fervent and reverent whisper of “science”); the mental hangover, more’s the pity, takes rather longer. 

Q isn’t human. That’s the long and short of it: if there was a way for testing for this (he knows he’s been checked over thoroughly on a regular basis, knows he would have heard by now if there was anything to find, and yet he still takes blood samples and bullies people into explaining the parts he doesn’t yet know without saying as much, and there’s _nothing_ ), if there was a way of pointing it out, of making his warped DNA light up like a Christmas tree with identifiers and the like, Q has been and always will be only half human. (At most.)

And he’d thought Bond’s immortality was bad. This is _Hell._

Speaking of Bond, Q knows that despite their appalling gossiping tendencies (when something is sufficiently obvious) nobody in Q Branch will comment on it in his presence, but he also knows that they have all noted the distinct lack of a certain field agent hanging around and making the place look messy. Q has no idea what Bond’s doing to kill the time now, and frankly he doesn’t care. He doesn’t have to see Bond’s face. That’s the main thing.

Eve’s gone quiet too, although he doesn’t think it’s for precisely the same reasons. He has a horrible feeling that she’s ‘giving him space’, which is possibly the worst idea in the world. They gave him space after his own Q died; after the fucking disaster labelled ‘Skyfall’ and hidden where everybody can pretend it didn’t end the world, at least for MI6. The best he can say about either occasion is that the palmprint handguns did go down well, and their security really _really_ needed upgrading. He just wishes those weren’t his greatest successes from the occasion.

When he goes home – _if_ he goes home – it’s too quiet. His cats haven’t abandoned him, which is something, only now it doesn’t feel like enough. (Stelmaria treats him like a stranger. Naturally.) The one time he stays the night, properly, he lies there staring at the ceiling wondering when bickering became his life. He doesn’t want to hear the answer.

The ticket sits there in its box, judging him. He leaves it at home and it judges him, and he takes it to work and it judges him, and he runs away one lunchtime to the park where he peers suspiciously at the crows which always show up and the dogs which gravitate towards him and the box laughs long and hard from afar as it judges him.

He doesn’t even last a week. He can’t even be sorry about that.

\----------

Tracking down Bond is not nearly as hard as it probably should have been. Q would feel sorry about that, or even possibly concerned about Bond’s espionage expertise, if it weren’t for the facts that firstly, Bond is not on mission right now, and secondly, in fairness, it is Q who’s tracking him.

Subdermal tracking devices never seem to last with Bond – Q has a recollection of his original Q throwing up his hands and announcing that they could probably trust 007 to either find his own way home or blow something up to let them know where he was – but in a city like London, you can’t really avoid the CCTV unless you’re Batman.

He leaves a polite text for Bond to find in the morning, and a polite profile on his current bed partner. Not that he think Bond cares, but it has a nice _1984_ thrill to it, and Q’s always been a sucker for that.

_Two intersections down from Q Branch, two days from now. Pack for the Underworld. – Q_

He’d considered something a little more oblique for the latter sentence, but on reflection decided that it already sounded like code anyway.

Two days gives him time to ‘get his affairs in order’ – in that he arranges for his deputy to take the helm for an extended period (who, magnificent woman that she is, only asks whether there’s anything about to explode in the next month she should know about) and starts compiling a list of what you might need on some sort of quest of this type. It’s one of the few occasions in his recollection that he finds himself crossreferencing survival websites and basic mythology.

(‘Mythology’. Every now and again he has to just stop and rub at his eyes and wonder what the fuck happened to his life.)

Eve is the rock he always knows she will be, after she’s stopped asking him if he’s insane. Admittedly she stops asking because she seems fairly certain she’s got her answer, but Q is willing to settle for that if it gets him a normal conversation. Even if he doesn’t always like the subject.

“You don’t think you need to debrief him?”

“I’ll be right there with him. We can debrief right before we set off.”

“Q…”

“And he’s ignoring my texts and keeps changing his routine as if it makes him harder to find and it’s just easier to ignore someone when they’re acting like that.”

Her nose wrinkles and she looks decidedly unhappy. Still, she does let them move on.

“You know I have to tell M.”

Q splutters, “ _Why_?”

When Eve turns determined, her face set without a hint of a smile, it’s not too hard to tell why she was a field agent first. You remember things like the small personal pistol she carries in that handbag of hers, tucked away in a secret pouch and constantly upgraded to the best Q can provide. “Q,” she admonishes, “I realise you’ve been distracted lately by this business, but you do still work for MI6 and you answer to M. I can cover for you as much as I can, but I have my own priorities and my own loyalties. Don’t worry,” she lays a hand on his knee, “I won’t let it get any further. Just don’t make me lie to my boss because you made an idiot decision like this. You’re the head of your department and James is one of the best agents we’ve got, despite his best efforts, so you can’t disappear nearly as easily as you seem to think, love. If you want a decent lie, you need M and Tanner to know – ”

“The list keeps growing,” he bites out.

“I don’t need your permission. I would like your endorsement because I love you and I hate parting on bad terms, but you have to understand how our lives work.”

He sighs, the fight vanishing out of him just as easily as it came as he collapses in his chair, rubbing at his face. “I do. I really do. Thank you.” Digging in his pocket, he holds out a small blinking device. “Speaking of covering for our own stupidity.”

She takes it to hold it up to her right eye, examining it closely. “It’s a distress beacon. No signal down there, but _this_ , this could work its way through a nuclear bunker.”

Eve raises an eyebrow.

“Hypothetically. The tech’s all there, I designed it myself – ”

“Then it must be flawless.”

“I hope you’re not questioning my undeniable brilliance. Again.”

“Only your arrogance, dear.”

“My arrogance has nothing to do with it. I haven’t had a chance to test it properly yet, what with the immortal idiot making the place untidy, but it will work.”

Pocketing the beacon, Eve leans forward; looks steadily into his eyes the way only she can, as if she’s not so much looking through him as into him, examining the spaces where he’s still Dorian and so very fallible.

“Because it has to?”

He meets her gaze and admits nothing.

Once she’s apparently judged the moment to have lasted long enough, she sighs and nods. She does not look away, but her gaze becomes distinctly less intense, and that’s more than enough of a relief.

“Okay, sweetie. You can count on me.”

“I already knew that.”

He smiles weakly at her, and while hers isn’t much stronger, he knows that she’s trying, and more than anything, he knows that he’ll miss her the most.

\----------

He meets Bond just down from Q Branch, at the edge where MI6 territory bleeds into the uncharted unknown. Of course Bond is dressed impeccably, in one of his thousands of suits which shouldn’t be suitable for any mission outside the usual charm or meet and greet (or seduce, as Bond’s missions inevitably go). Idly Q notes that he recognises this one: a survivor from a mission in Burma where Bond was caught in the crossfire of gang warfare and walked away without a scratch on him. (Once again, Q queries what a difference immortality really makes.) Were he to accuse Bond of such superstitions, he’d call it his battle armour.

As always, Bond looks him over with a pinched expression of barely controlled pain. There is absolutely no truth in the rumour that Q occasionally dresses just to test 007’s resolve not to resort to violence against clothing. (The image of Bond ripping his clothes off is an intriguing one, albeit best reserved for outside work hours.) 

“What’s in the bag?” he asks, for the moment apparently restraining himself from passing unrequested judgement on Q’s wardrobe. It’s the closest to courtesy Q can ask for, and with a shrug of his shoulder, he offers his backpack up for inspection.

“Water for two, distress signal, mobile phone, torch, batteries, compass, whistle, knife, matches, lighter, newspaper, emergency rations, honey – ”

“Honey?”

“I Googled it. Only food that doesn’t spoil. If they try to pull some sort of ‘this is the world of the dead, everything dies here’ trick on us, there’s still something to eat.”

Bond is looking at him with the expression Q recognises from others as an indication that he may have overthought things. He has no idea why though: it is Q’s job to think of everything Bond – and hence, on this particular occasion, himself – might need on a particular mission. If he didn’t do that, well, he’d have to hand in the initial, wouldn’t he?

Just because Bond likes to pick and choose what he calls ‘necessary’ and others call ‘idiotic’ and destroy any piece of truly useful equipment ever issued to him (Q knows he has his Walther on him because he issued it himself, God only knows what Bond’s hoping to shoot but he knows a placebo when he sees one), it doesn’t mean Q is going to take risks to make him feel at home.

“Problem, 007?”

Bond shifts his weight in that precise way to indicate that yes, there are plenty of problems, he has a problem with you and your way of thinking and your way of dressing, he has a problem with what you just said and he has a problem with what you didn’t say, and at the end of the day he intends to proceed exactly as he was always going to without any acknowledgement that you spoke at all. It’s quite impressive for such a subtle movement, but then, Bond is old school Secret Service surviving in a modern MI6 and the only subversive behaviour he’s allowed in person that hasn’t gotten him fired or executed several times over is the subtle kind. If M can’t describe it out loud without sounding petty, then there’s at least less that he (or she) can do about it.

Then again, Q isn’t M – will never be M, that’s Eve’s job – and so he braces himself for questions about why the hell Q thinks this is something he can prepare for, or why he needs a bag of supplies when Bond has apparently brought nothing (again, that’s Q’s _job_ ), or whether he is really basing that honey thing on bloody Google.

“Are those Converses?”

Q considers a biting inquiry regarding Bond’s ability to recognise such items – except he’s fairly certain Bond should remember them from the first time around, maybe he could comment on that instead – but he restrains himself at the last minute. Plenty of time for arguing while trawling around the tunnels searching for a tube station which may or may not connect to the realm of the dead.

“We’re descending into the Underworld on a quest to ask a _god_ to undo an accidental blessing and restore your mortality,” Q reminds him instead. “Forgive me for wanting to add an element of the ridiculous.”

\----------

At first, the tunnels really are in very good repair. As the cold modern light and steel of MI6 vanishes behind them and they switch to torchlight, there are still good brick walls and solid footing beneath them. Q isn’t as obsessively caught up in modern progress (as some people seem to assume) that he can’t acknowledge that once upon a time things were built to last.

Nevertheless, he’s still happy to hear the first apparently location-less ominous drip in the darkness. It just seems appropriate.

It’s not long before his sense of time starts to go. Admittedly that’s mostly his fault: for all that he can keep track when he deems it relevant, generally it’s all too easy to stop caring about individual minutes or hours (or, occasionally, days), and that’s even when he’s not endlessly walking down seemingly identical tunnels with absolutely no idea where he’s going.

Funnily enough, as the tunnels stretch on and on and his bearings vanish off into the shadows building up all around them, any claustrophobia doesn’t come from their surroundings, but the oppressive silence between the two of them.

Q doesn’t usually mind silence. Sometimes he babbles to himself, sometimes he’s content to say nothing, it’s all the same to him so long as he can think. This is different though; this isn’t so much _silence_ as the sound of two people _not speaking_. It’s something which manages to both suffocate and needle him at the same time, in a way which makes him wonder if the fault doesn’t lie in a basic inadequacy of language to truly encompass the horror of an intentional awkward silence. The longer it goes on, the less he feels like it’s possible for him to talk, and the more he fancies that even if it were, Bond would kill him in seconds.

Presumably Bond is suffering none of this. Q has little doubt that the bastard is having a merry old time trawling along and casually torturing him.

They come to one fork, and then another. In lieu of asking, or indeed stopping and thus showing so much as a moment of indecision and therefore weakness, Q chooses the way at random, plunging further and further down into what he fancies are the bowels of London. At first he was following what he’d guessed from overlaying the explored tunnels over a map of London, attempting to use logic to work out a route (as far as logic applies to the London Underground); then he was aiming in the rough direction as they ran out of known territory; and now he’s just alternating left and right turns to try to keep them pointed roughly the right way.

Eve had offered directions; to stay in radio contact and tell them where to go. She hadn’t been delighted with Q’s answer, and he couldn’t blame her. It rankles for him too.

 

When Bond finally breaks the silence, Q can only be grateful he didn’t let out the potential squeak of surprise.

“Do you actually know where you’re going?”

Q considers lying. Unfortunately, he considers it a little too long, and hears Bond come to a halt behind him. Taking a deep breath, he turns around, and is honestly a little surprised not to have a gun already levelled at his own head. Perhaps the glare, which is admittedly of true 007 pedigree, is supposed to suffice.

He says, “I know where we’ve been.”

“Tell me why I shouldn’t shoot you right now.”

“Because that would be quite the overreaction. It also wouldn’t solve anything other than your concerning bloodlust.”

“You got us lost!”

“I realise observation isn’t something you always prioritise, 007,” Q says, always finding some pleasure in needling Bond, accusing him of not being a very good spy for no other reason than petty anger, “but I have in fact been marking the road taken, so no, we are not lost. I am not just saying that I know where we’ve been, I can point to the arrows we can follow home, which is hardly ‘lost’.”

“You don’t know where we are, though.”

Q has to admit, “No, I don’t.” He’s rather impressed that Bond does not immediately commence gloating, although that might mean he’s in even more trouble than expected. 

“When were you going to tell me?”

“Was I supposed to? I was under the impression that you – what was it – ‘don’t care so long as it gets it done’?”

Truly, there is nothing quite like quoting Bond’s own inane outbursts back at him to make the agent snarl. A little belatedly, Q recalls that this is usually a strategy practised over the comms, or at the very least not when it is just the two of them in a dark tunnel far beneath London.

Bond insists, “You should have told me.”

“Told you what, 007? That ‘follow the tunnels’ means giving up? The whole point is to just _trust_ and _have faith_ that we’ll end up in the right place.” The words drip from his mouth like acid, burning, scarring. Q hasn’t trusted to a higher power since his mother stayed so awkwardly silent in response to his endless questions. Frankly, the idea that her silence might have carried a different motivation only serves to make the new expectations tear that bit deeper.

Bond’s eyes narrow – disbelief, if Q’s any judge. “You want me to ‘ _have faith_ ’?” The feeling’s mutual, it seems. It’s hard to guess which of them looks the more pained at having to so much speak the words, much less believe them. Personally, Q is rooting for himself in that contest, if only because he has the hot flush of embarrassment to add resentment to the rest.

“So it would seem,” he bites out.

“And how do you know that?”

Q drawls, “Isn’t it always the way?”

“Not good enough.”

“In that, we are in agreement.” Q turns away, makes to leave – stomping away sounds like a good idea, it’s not like there’s anyone else around to see except the man who already seems to have formed a fairly low opinion of him. He’s fuming, practically spitting with anger. Already bad enough that he has to do this; worse to have to say it out loud.

A steely grip closes around his upper arm, and something snaps. He spins back, throwing himself against Bond’s elbow. When his hand comes up to follow through though, Bond isn’t there anymore. Q’s hand strikes down on thin air, and before he can pull back Bond’s hand is closing around his wrist, yanking it painfully back and trapping it up behind his back. At least Bond has the decency not to do quite the same to the other hand, this one instead pinned in front of him.

In his ear, Bond hisses, “What the fuck was that?”

“The part where I didn’t appreciate you manhandling me?”

“The part where you attacked an operative who murders for a living. Are you _trying_ to get yourself killed?”

“Perhaps I spend too much time around you,” Q spits out, struggling uselessly but refusing to stay still. Bond’s hand tightens around his wrist, pushing the arm slightly higher, and Q gasps, “Fuck, fine, I yield, let _go_.”

Instantly, Bond does so. Q supposes he should be grateful for that. However, he can also still feel Bond’s fingerprints. 

Bond watches him nursing his wrist. “You’ve got a chip on your shoulder.”

“I believe the saying is ‘takes one to know one’?” Q mutters in disgust. The pain’s fading already, actually. Perhaps he’s bruised, but that’s all, and barely. He realises that even when acting on instinct, Bond held back, and it gives the anger still bubbling under his skin a bile-tinged edge.

“Except I’ve never seen you like this.” Q glances up to see the light rather unfairly picking out those ridiculously blue eyes focused like lasers on him. It’s enough to make him recoil, curling up defensively. Q hates being the focus of attention. He stays at the edge of crowds, or far enough in that he just blurs together with the rest; runs a faceless department within an organisation which prides itself on anonymity; values his new obscuring initial more than anything. He’s the voice at the end of the line. He is definitely not what he wants James Bond looking at like that. 

He snaps, “Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think.” It rings out as weak before the words have so much as finished leaving him. If anything, as depressing as it sounds, Bond knows him better than most. Definitely if you agree that Q’s newly discovered parentage changes who he is.

Bond’s quiet for a moment, no doubt considering his next move, calculating how to manipulate the truth out of Q. That’s what he does, after all. “You don’t like not knowing something,” he announces. Q restrains himself from a slow round of applause, barely, settling for rolling his eyes instead. “You don’t know much more about what’s going on than I do.”

“It’s concerning that you’ve only just realised that.” Q shrugs defensively. “I don’t have all the answers. Do you feel disappointed?”

“Do you?”

Technically, Bond is way off the mark. ‘Disappointed’ may well be the one thing Q doesn’t feel about all of this.

However, it still qualifies for ‘one question too many’, and for all that Q can feel it building up inside him, he just can’t hold it back anymore.

“I don’t think you quite comprehend how much I hate this!” he finally snaps. “None of this makes any sense! You’re complaining that you’re immortal, and no, I still don’t understand that, but the fact is that you being immortal is just the tip of the iceberg of how ridiculous this all is! I have to follow tunnels – I have to _deliberately get lost_ – to get to a Tube station which isn’t there unless you do this specific walk to go to the Underworld to talk to my father who happens to be a god – _the_ god – of Death, even though nothing happens when you die, you just die! I have to abandon any idea of how the world works, and no, 007, it’s not the same as it is for you, because you have always bent the laws of physics and everything else to just keep going. You live on obscure loopholes and one-in-a-million chances, but I don’t. It’s my job to live in a very solid world of numbers and _facts_. I have to account for the other nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine times, the ones we normal people have to deal with every day of our lives – except that’s just it, isn’t it? It turns out I’m not human, so things like blessings and field trips to the Underworld, I suppose that’s my life now, isn’t it?” 

To be honest, he doesn’t stop because there’s nothing else to say. There’s so much to rail against, every logical human part of him is screaming to be heard, to voice its pointless protests against a world that doesn’t fit his precious beliefs anymore. In fact, that’s just it: there’s too much. First he can feel it all building up inside him, and then it’s rather like a computer overloading and overheating and choosing emergency shutdown as the only option it has left anymore.

He’s still shaking with anger; with embarrassment, too. He covers his face with his hand because he really can’t stand seeing Bond right now. If he has to admit it, if only to himself, he just wishes he could vanish off down yet another one of these dark tunnels and die.

“You seem pretty human to me.”

It starts in his throat as a laugh; it emerges more like a sob. “That’s the point, isn’t it?”

The silence is back again. This time, however, it is far, far more awkward. Q’s had a charming breakdown in front of 007 and now Bond is stuck with a quivering mess for a Quartermaster and yes, that ‘dying in a tunnel’ plan grows more appealing by the second.

“Does it matter?”

“Whether I’m human? I think I am petty enough to think so, yes.”

“Does it stop you doing anything you’ve already been doing your whole life?”

Q risks a glance over his hand. Whilst there’s an awkward edge to Bond’s posture – shoulders too stiff, affected slouch a little too casual – his gaze is steady, not unimpressed but rather Bond’s unfailing unruffled response to a world of insanity and evil geniuses trying to blow it up. He looks like a man who really doesn’t see what the problem is. Presumably, Q thinks (a little unkindly), if he can’t shoot it, then why worry?

He does feel guilty about thinking that, almost immediately. 

Stupid as it sounds, he can feel himself calming down. Bond doesn’t say anything big or meaningful, and as Q watches he straightens up and regains most of that patented 007 coolness (if Q knew how to bottle the stuff, he’d be rich in no time). He doesn’t even make a painful quip, although frankly Q isn’t sure he’d survive one right now. Nevertheless, just making eye contact (good God, the man almost looks concerned, Q hopes he stops before he pulls something) makes Q feel a little less like he’s about to shatter into a thousand pieces.

Unconsciously his breathing slows down to match Bond’s. With a little more time, his thoughts follow suit.

He lets his hand fall from his face; takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” is Bond’s only response, before nodding down the tunnel. “We were headed that way.”

“We were, weren’t we?” Q agrees softly. When he forces himself forward – reluctant feet setting up a slow pace, not weary but certainly resigned to getting nowhere fast – Bond falls into step, this time at his side.

The silence is back. It’s far more comfortable, this time.

After a while – seriously, London is big, but it isn’t _this big_ , not if North End is where Q left it the other day – Bond asks, “What’s worrying you?”

Q leaves “Who says I’m worried?” unsaid, since neither of them has much time for that particular piece of avoidance. Instead, he asks dryly, “Besides the trip to the land of the dead?” and is rewarded with the sound of surprising a laugh out of Bond. It never fails to make himself smile as well.

“Anything in particular? We seem to have skipped the briefing.”

“Your lack of professionalism is catching.”

“I’d already realised that.”

Q’s not sure if it’s a smile or a wince that takes hold of his face. With Bond, the two can lie so close together. _So much for my promising career in espionage,_ he recalls. He’s lucky the new M can at least see the merit in the less orthodox methods. Must be the prolonged exposure to the PM.

He doesn’t answer at first, content just to walk, Bond content to wait. Eventually he sighs; says, “Because this isn’t fantasy anymore; it’s mythology.”

“What difference does it make?”

“Precedent, for the most part. 007, trips to the Underworld rarely go well. Persephone’s kidnapped, eats six pomegranate seeds just because she’s hungry, and then she’s trapped down there for half of every year. Orpheus tries to get his true love’s soul back but can’t resist looking back to see if she’s really coming with him; she’s lost and he lets himself get torn apart rather than live without her. I’m not as familiar with other cultures, but from what I’ve seen, this is the one thing you’re not supposed to meddle with.

“And here we are. Meddling.”

The word escapes with a roll of the eyes, to the sound of laughter. When he turns to glare, Bond is looking at him with something which on somebody normal might be affection and on licensed professional killer looks more than a little out of place. “Isn’t that our job?”

Q looks at him, honestly rather enjoying his little moment of melodrama, before he gives up and laughs himself. “Yes, it certainly is.”

“Would you really have left it alone, if I hadn’t been pushing?”

There’s only one honest answer to that. “No.”

“Thought not.” Then, damn him, Bond reaches out and _ruffles his hair._

Q’s white-hot glare of indignation does not reduce him to ashes. This is a great shame and clearly requires further experimentation to ensure later success.

“There you are,” Bond says, before Q can launch into any of the variations of the themes of ‘I am your superior and you will show me some bloody respect’, ‘I am not eighteen’, and of course the time-honoured ‘I will stab you in your sleep’.

“Meaning what, precisely?”

Bond is uncharacteristically silent – or possibly very characteristically, since he’s defaulted to the kind of smile of mystery which on most people comes off as unbelievably rehearsed but on 007 just seems effortlessly cool and natural. In fact, Q reckons this is one of the more obscure prerequisites for the Double O programme, down in the depths of the small print. He certainly sees it far too often, to the point where it really just rubs him up the wrong way. Like most of their shared attributes, he has to admit, although Bond generally pulls them off better, his treacherous mind with its treacherous tendency towards favouritism adds.

“Fine. Be all secret and mysterious. See if I care.” When in doubt, revert to petty sarcasm worthy of a five-year-old. If secret agents can do it, so can their quartermaster.

While he can’t see out of the back of his head – yet – Q doesn’t have to hear the echo of Bond’s steps to know that he’s staying close, and matching his huffy angry stride pace for pace.

“Well, you never know. We might get our souls eaten instead.”

When Q stops to look back at him in alarmed confusion, Bond just smiles. “The Egyptians thought your heart was weighed against the Feather of Truth. If the lies you told weighed more, then you were turned over to the Devourer of the Dead.” While Q is certainly glad that Bond is happy, he could do without the disturbing glint in his eye. “Part lion, part hippopotamus, part crocodile. If she ate your heart, your soul was condemned to wander the afterlife for eternity.”

It’s childish ghost stories at their finest, just the right balance of truth and the macabre.

“Well,” Q says, slowly smiling, “if lying is what decides it, I guess we’re both doomed.” 

Later on, Q might reflect on their matching grins at the very thought.

\----------

Finally, _finally_ – Q knows London’s not exactly small, and that things like gauging distance travelled should probably be left to the professional next to him, but he also knows that something is amiss about how long they’ve been walking and seeing nothing but one dark shadowy tunnel after another – they see a light up ahead.

Q opens his mouth and Bond says, “Don’t.”

In silence, they emerge into the stuttering washed-out light of a Tube station, black words in an old-fashioned style proclaiming it to indeed be North End. Except this isn’t North End – at least, not the station Q visited only yesterday. Then, he’d emerged from vaguely threatening stairs to the sight of nothing but grey dismal rubble and an overwhelming sense that he shouldn’t be present. The only signs of life were the odds and ends – cigarette ends, old tickets, glimmering foil packets – which accumulated no matter where you went in London. Unsurprisingly (and rather satisfyingly, for Q’s purposes), it had looked like every other rundown abandoned station London had ever chosen to forget about.

Not so this station. If it’s grey, it’s because the white paint desperately needs a touch-up, or even the most basic of washes, to clear the grime of the Underground for however long it’s possible. If there’s rubble, it feels more like an apology; like something escaped from the Other station, because there was just too much of it. If there’s rubbish, it’s because it’s London.

What draws the eye, however, is the ticket barrier which cuts off the platform itself from the rest of the station. Without exchanging so much as a look, they both approach it, with all the wariness due an alligator.

“That wasn’t here before,” Q croaks, breaking the silence. Feeling in his pocket, he produces the ticket, and Bond examines it with evident deep distrust. However, that is nothing compared to when he reaches out across the barrier – it does look a little flimsy as far as supernatural barriers go – and his hand knocks against, for want of any other way of seeing things, an invisible forcefield.

Frankly appalled, Q knocks against it himself. There’s ‘down the rabbit hole’ and then there’s the whole world turning against you. “Today just keeps getting better. There goes the idea of jumping.” Not that he had put any thought into the matter. “Maybe it’s possible to fool supernatural forces if you just run through right behind me?”

He deserves the look he gets. If he could, Q would probably punch himself for that. He gives the more visible barrier a desultory kick. “I’ve got a screwdriver, I could always – ”

“Get out of the way.”

Q scowls, but does oblige. Bond braces himself, one hand on each side, before snapping out his leg at the plastic gates. The plastic did not move; Bond did, staggering backwards before catching his balance and trying a little belatedly to look like that was precisely what he’d intended. Whilst Q can recognise the laws of physics at work (in terms of driving Bond backwards, not in terms of flaps of plastic withstanding the sort of kick Bond likes to use to break, well, everything), he still indulges in a smirk. Seeing Bond’s feathers ruffled – or, more accurately, seeing Bond look like an idiot rather than the epitome of effortless suave charm – never gets old.

It’s something he regrets as soon as Bond pulls out the Walther and fires.

Once the ringing leaves his ears, he realises Bond is saying something. “What?”

“I said, flailing backwards doesn’t stop a bullet hitting you.”

Ignoring him, Q says, “I didn’t know you’d signed out the Walther.”

Bond just looks at him. Come to think of it, Q supposes it is rather silly not to have realised that.

Pointedly examining the turnstiles, he concludes, “Well, judging by the lack of damage, breaking through isn’t going to work.” 

Maybe Bond has some sort of comeback there. It wouldn’t surprise him. Looking at the barrier, however, the words vanish into the background. There’s a faint ringing in Q’s ears instead. It’s like realising the truth of the words that brought them here; like trusting the tunnels to lead them to the right place. There’s something old at work here, and Q is so small in front of it.

The ticket catches at his fingers in his pocket, full of promise. Dreamily, Q pulls it free. He can get Bond through, he thinks, but he has to be on the other side first.

In through one slot and out another, and the gates slide open before him. Bond catches at his arm before he can go through, though, and Q blinks up at him. If he tries, he can tell Bond is demanding to know what he’s doing. All he can say is a helpless, “We can’t do anything on this side.”

The rushing starts as soon as he passes through: the building wind, the approaching clatter and groan of a train which should have been retired long ago. It matches the ringing as rational thought fights to catch up with what the fuck just happened.

He turns to look back, eyes wide with horror at how easily that took him. Bond stares back at him, white-knuckled grip on either side of the turnstile. “You had better have a bloody good plan.” For all the world, he sounds like he’s scared. Imagine that.

A second later, Q realises he might have said some of that out loud. “I do,” he lies. Behind him, the roar of the train is building. 

Bond raises his eyebrows. “Well?”

Q opens his mouth. Fortunately, whatever answer might have escaped vanishes, drowned out as the train bursts through onto the platform, and he can’t help but watch.

At first, he thinks that it looks like every other train prowling the tunnels of the Tube. It’s large, long, and that precise shade of grey which according to legend was once white. Through scratched windows, he can see uncomfortable seats sheathed in a covering designed by monkeys. When the doors align directly in front of him and open with a pained exhale, it’s hard not to imagine that he’s at any other station.

What sets it apart is the feeling. First the impending doom and inevitability as it pulled in, the sense that without realising it, he has always been waiting for this train; that leads into the odd nostalgia as it stopped before him; and finally the acceptance as the doors welcome him. It feels oddly like coming home.

It might all be nothing but fancy. The last thought though – ‘home’ – offers something akin to a possibility. Despite everything, Q doesn’t believe in pretty much any cosmology besides the concept that they all fixed to a planet hurtling through a solar system itself hurtling through the universe until everything ends. If he speculated on anything in connection with the last week, the last few months, he doubts would have pictured the Underworld as a beginning as well as an end. Which means that, if he feels some sense of home, it’s a matter of heritage.

The ticket is still there, in his hand. His father left this for him. The train arrived as soon as he summoned it. The rules bend for him, or else they wouldn’t be in this bloody mess to begin with.

Mindful as any commuter that the Tube waits for no man, he fixes an image in his mind. If he has faith in nothing else, he has faith in this. “007,” he announces, “get on the train.”

The first try comes out too quiet by far. “Get on the train.” Immediately he tries again; hears the words blur together as he rushes through them; swears under his breath. 

He sees the train tremble; eyes the open doors nervously. Abruptly they start to close again, and it’s only years of experience with the Tube that make him jump on in time, reaching out behind himself to block their passage, shouting again, “Get on the bloody train!”, instinct driving his movements because logically, why on Earth would a route to the bloody underworld follow the same security protocols as a train on the District Line?

He hears a familiar clatter and an equally familiar snarl of frustration, followed by a barely-restrained yell, “Are you even trying?”

He bridles at the accusation (ignoring that that was no doubt precisely Bond’s intention), even as the doors thankfully slide back again to grant them a few more seconds accompanied by the high-pitched whine of a vexed and hindered train; closes his eyes and thinks. Once again he summons up the memory of that day when he was panicked and invested enough to actually care whether or not this bastard survived, and not just to complete the mission. This time, though, instead of focusing on the _why_ , he homes in on the _how_. Not the emotions or thoughts, but what exactly did he do? How had he said the words that started this whole mess?

 _You do not have my_ permission _to die!_

It hadn’t been about the anger, he realises. A fine motivator, to be sure, but he’d been angry plenty of times before. It had been something else; the order?

The door bounced off his arm a second time, and in the manner of any frantic scrambling mind, a calm and detached offshoot observed that really, it was very lucky and convenient, but _why_?

“Q!” he hears Bond yell.

“007,” he responds on pure instinct, too soft for Bond to hear right now, because it’s the controlled voice of one dealing with high-pressure situations over sensitive equipment, guiding events from far away (even if with Bond it’s more like herding an extremely angry cat). Because what’s an order if not the expectation that you’ll be obeyed?

Like _expecting_ a Tube’s door not to close on you.

“Bond,” he announces, locking eyes across the platform with where Bond is clearly contemplating whether emptying an entire clip into a cosmic ticket barrier will have any effect other than soothing his own frustration, summoning up the same confidence and simple ‘you will do this because you have to and there is no other way for things to fall out’ as the first time he gave Bond the same order, “Bond, get on the train.”

Perhaps it’s his own fanciful imagination at work, but he reckons he feels a faint tingling sensation in his fingertips where they hold the door open.

Then again, that might just be his own reaction to the sight of Bond’s savage grin as no, the barrier doesn’t open (presumably because Q wasn’t asking for that), but he does vault over it, hitting and crossing the platform in two steps before leaping onto the train next to Q, just as he has to snatch his hand away as the train lets out a piercing whine and the metal beneath his fingers turns suddenly red-hot.

(Three tries. Was it because Q pushed his luck or simply the law of three?)

The doors slide shut before them, and the train moves off with the abrupt jerk which sends anyone not anchored in place flying. 

“You want to put that somewhere safe,” Bond informs him, nodding at the ticket still clutched in his hand. Q frowns at it in confusion. “You don’t want to lose it,” Bond presses, “not for a return trip. I might not remember much mythology, but I know people will tear each other apart for a ticket to freedom.”

Q wrinkles his nose. “Thank you for that pleasant image.” Nonetheless, he recognises good advice when he hears it, and after a moment’s consideration he opts for removing his shoe and placing the ticket inside. If you’re being paranoid, might as well go all the way.

As he replaces it, somehow not falling over at the same time, Bond asks, “Now what?”. Q wonders how exactly he manages to maintain that air of louche unmoved indifference even when he’s in a moving train carriage with an even more doom-laden destination than usual.

Q shrugs the rucksack off onto one shoulder and then dropping down into his hand, as he moves to slump into a seat in just the same way he has every day for years upon years of his life.

“Now,” he announces, as if he has the slightest idea what he’s talking about, “we do the same as commuters all over London: we wait for the next stop.”

\----------

Reading is harder than Q expected. His eyes itch with tiredness and the words blur. There’s nothing else to do, though: he’s talked quite enough lately, and the view outside is nothing but blackness, slightly too deep and menacing to be a normal tunnel anymore. The book makes for a nice distraction, both from the passing void and a train which is unsettling and impossibly (to a Londoner) empty.

Next to him, Bond sighs, dropping his head back. Q endeavours to ignore him.

“How do you stand waiting like this?”

“I like the Tube.” When Bond starts drumming his fingers on the seat behind him, Q grits out, “I apologise for not including a Sudoku for you.”

“I suppose you didn’t have space next to the ‘emergency rations’.”

“That’s the label on the box, Bond. If you want me to inventory all the survival bars, I can.” Q shifts in his seat, reading the same sentence for the eighth time. Never has he been so convinced that Bilbo announced a party of special magnificence and that this in turn led to much talk and excitement in his home. 

Once again, Q feels simultaneously like he is being dismissed and examined in great depth. He wonders if that’s Bond’s tactic in general, or just when dealing with any form of authority. (Of course, Bond’s general tactics are a little bit more…sensual, but the rest of time, when a sudden descent into coitus might be deemed a little too abrupt.)

“You don’t enjoy camping.”

It seems a non-sequitur, but Q’s found those to be quite popular around MI6 – especially since he unearthed the Sherlock fanbase in Q Branch – so he rolls with it, a tad indulgently. “Trapped in the middle of nowhere with the mud, cows and a bunch of idiots obsessed with ‘communing with nature’, and no web access to make the time pass faster.”

“I guessed as much,” and yes, that is a smug smirk, in fact it is _the_ smug smirk, God, Q hates it so, “but lately it seems better not to make assumptions about you.”

And Q really, honestly can’t help it: he tries not to show it, but he can feel a smile grow and his back straighten as he _preens_ like a bloody cat. 

Bond’s smile turns momentarily sly – amused as well, but undeniably sly as well – and oh yes, there’s the usual undercurrent to any interaction that makes Q want to punch him in the face – or at least there’s the thrill of adrenaline and he’s going to assume that’s what it’s there for.

“What are you reading?” Bond asks, another abrupt change of subject on the heels of the first no doubt intended to catch Q off-guard (either that or sidestep wherever that was going, or maybe Q just reads far too much into these things).

Q blinks, looking down at the battered cover as his mind goes momentarily completely blank. “ _Lord of the Rings_.” He raises his head and shrugs at their reflections in the opposite window. “I highly doubt I’ll be able to charge my Kindle in the _Underworld_ and, as much as the reference appeals to me, my copy of Dante is far too heavy.” He sighs, a hint of pessimism/realism brushing against his awareness. “Besides, it’s not like I don’t know how it ends.”

He’s aware that there are plenty of things in that statement for Bond to pick at, but instead all he gets is, “Any good?”

He closes it properly and holds it out. “See for yourself. I’m not particularly in the mood.” As an afterthought, he adds, “There’s today’s paper in my bag too, remember. Source of kindling if nothing else.”

Impressively, Bond doesn’t take one of the most famous fantasy novels of all time gingerly or with disgust, and does in fact seem to intend to read it. “You’ve had this a while.”

“As I said, 007, I know how it ends. Never fails to kill time though.”

Bond reading _Lord of the Rings_. It should be worth watching. Unfortunately, just as his attention had started wandering, now his eyelids are growing impossibly heavy and his mind is already spiralling off into the ether.

Sighing, he settles back in the seat – seeking comfort where he knows from experience there will be none – and lets his eyes fall close.

He hadn’t thought he’d be able to sleep, and certainly not all that quickly, but, well, he’s been wrong about quite a few things lately, hasn’t he?


	2. Part II: The Realm of the Dead

Slowly Q swims back into consciousness, drawn out of sleep by the same rhythm that had lulled him there in the first place. He has no idea how long he’s been out. 

When his eyes blink open, he lets out a sigh. The world is a hazy blur, meaning he’s left his glasses somewhere and he really can’t remember where.

“What are you looking for?”

The sense dawning on him that something about this scenario is off – he can’t quite place what, his eyes ache a little but that might be the sleep, it happens – Q looks over at Bond and asks, “Did you see where I put my glasses?”

Even as he says the words, the realisation lurking at the edges starts to swell up into, well, focus. He knows what the world looks like without the lenses to help him. It’s like living in a Monet painting, soothingly out of focus, no details or sharp lines and vague impressions unless he holds something right up against his face. His eyesight is appalling and it’s rather nice to have the option where with a very simple motion you can make the world go away.

Now that he’s properly waking up, his roused brain points out that that ache in his eyes is highly unusual; that it’s more like they’re trying frantically to adjust, which just isn’t the case when they’ve given up and there are pieces of engineering to do their job for them. Bond is blurry and not in the right way, and it’s that sort of illogical thought that finally gets the brain whirring properly.

It clicks just as he figures out that Bond is reaching out wordlessly towards him, meaning that he’s allowed to be annoyed as fingers tap pointedly against the frames still resting on his face.

Carefully Q reaches up and pulls them down, just enough to see over. Instantly Bond’s face – blank in the careful way which poorly covers flashes of concern and confusion and amusement in turn – leaps into focus. 

“Well, this is an unexpected development.”

“You seem to be handling it.”

“Is that an – oh.” Q just moved his head and now he has to blink rapidly to reorient himself. Bond doesn’t demand to know if he’s alright, but then he has body language to do that sort of thing for him. Q still isn’t certain if that particular protective tensing is nice or a tiny bit patronising. “Sorry,” he says instead, “peripheral vision.” 

“Should we be worried?”

“About what? Seeing things out of the corner of my eye? I think I can handle it.” Even if there constantly seems to be something moving there, something lingering when he turns his head. Is that normal? Having never so much as tried contact lenses, he really isn’t sure.

Bond’s scowls are apparently even better without fingerprints or accumulated dust in the way. That’s worth knowing. It almost makes up for the irrational thought that his face feels _naked_. “You know what I mean.”

As much as Q would love to pick that apart, he unfortunately does. Things like myopia don’t fix themselves, like stabs to the stomach or bullet pathways through the cerebral cortex. If they’re lucky, these are all connected, only if so it’s not so much ‘luck’ as them being rather more screwed than they realised.

“All things considered, 20/20 vision is probably the least of our worries.”

“So long as that’s all it is.”

“Ever the optimist, 007.”

Something flickers at the corner of his vision again, making his head jerk, before he settles to blinking in confusion at the seat in front of him. He’s fairly certain that when they got on board the train was empty – he remembers thinking how odd it was. However, if his current line of sight is anything to go by, they’ve now been joined by a girl.

She’s maybe fifteen, dressed to look eighteen, but seems younger because of the way she’s hunched over. Her eyes are fixed on a small spot on the floor, apparently unaware of the two men facing her. More than anything, she looks sad, although there’s a faint resignation creeping into the set of her mouth. Her fingers are tapping out a rhythm against her other arm, crossed defensively over her chest, but it doesn’t seem she’s particularly aware of doing so, or possibly of what the tune is. Hair falls forward to cover her face protectively, all the colours of the rainbow – except every one of those colours seems oddly muted, like viewing them through a filter.

Q blinks, and suddenly her mature clothing is ripped, her mouth bloody, an arm and a leg bent at unnatural angles, bruises vanishing beneath her clothes; blinks again, and she is back to ‘normal’. As he lets out a gasp, she quite simply fades out into nothingness – dissolving like in films, except this isn’t a film, oh God, _this isn’t a film_ – before returning, not a flicker on her face suggesting she’s ever been anywhere or anything else.

“Bond?” he asks carefully. The joys of peripheral vision – very rapidly wearing off – tell him Bond has returned to the book. It’s open rather satisfyingly further in than Q had expected.

Bond does not look up. “I was wondering when you’d notice them.”

“Them?” Q squawks – or possibly some other, far more masculine verb – except even as he asks, all that flickering at the edges starts to resolve into something…well, not more solid, but certainly more visible. First just one or two, then ten, and gradually more and more bleed through until it really is rush hour on the Tube.

They’re all moving back and forth between similar states to the first girl: resigned shuffling dejection and the same but more noticeably dead. In some cases, there isn’t much difference – a slight hollowing to the face, perhaps, or bloody flecks around the mouth – but in others he has to turn away to stifle the instinctive retch.

“When?” is all he manages to choke out.

“Not sure,” Bond replies, and Q looks up sharply, because any agent, and especially those of the double-oh class, should be able to at least estimate times. You can’t always be near a clock, after all, or a watch, or even the stars. Bond doesn’t look like he’s lying though, since the clear twist to his expression is one of definite annoyance, even distaste. He’s not being facile, like usual; he genuinely doesn’t know. And isn’t that so comforting? “After you fell asleep but before they left Hobbiton.”

The collision of worlds hurts Q’s brain. It’s probably exactly what he needed.

“Where are they now?”

“Who the fuck is Tom Bombadil?”

“Ah.” As he catches sight of a particularly unpleasant fellow traveller, Q shivers. “Have they been doing that all the time?”

“Doing what?”

“You know. Moving back and forth. Normal and translucent then…bloody.”

Bond is studying him. That’s never a good sign. “They just look normal. For ghosts.”

Well, that’s 007 for you, Q thinks as he settles back in his seat in an attempt to hide how he’s hunching over, instinctively pulling in on himself. Manages to make ‘ghosts’ sound like just another variant on the archetype of the irritating fellow commuter. 

Truth be told, he’s a little reluctant to talk any further. Perhaps it’s the sheer strangeness of their surroundings, plus the small matter of the restoration of his vision – why would that even happen? – but he feels like he needs a moment. If nothing else, the rhythm of a Tube train always soothes him somehow. All he needs are some lads storming on from the pub to feel right from the pub – no doubt bruised and bloody from the fight which took their lives.

Time seeps into the indefinable forever of commuter travel. As transportation systems for the Underworld go, this is positively mundane. Disappointing, but Q approves. 

All around them, the Tube begins to fill, not from stops but as more and more of their fellow passengers fade into view. Presumably that’s how they appeared before. London-honed senses mean Q should have roused, had they stopped anywhere else. 

They just keep arriving, filling the seats and the spaces between. As the carriage grows more and more crowded, Q notices that in some cases where extraneous limbs are only getting in the way, they merge, a layering effect which actually produces the illusion of solidity rather like crossing over filters. It’s more than a little disorienting to watch, and a few times Q has to close his eyes because it’s just getting too much.

Bond starts to say, “Do you realise they’re all – ” when, as abruptly as they started moving, the train halts. Outside the window opposite, it is still dark, yet the doors whisper open and the ghosts proceed towards it. One or two hobble from lost limbs, and his car-crash girl walks at an eerie angle to the rest of them – an effect lost when they all temporarily flicker with the veneer of ghostly normality. Q wonders if, to Bond, they all walk as they should, but thinks better of raising the question again. 

There seem to be rather more ghosts getting off than he ever saw before. A few times he fancies he might have seen one split into two, if only because he’s definitely also seen them merge in the small space of the open doors. 

“I was rather hoping for a voice announcing the stop,” Q admits, to break the silence of thousands of ghosts disembarking. Bond doesn’t respond, but nervous babbling loves silent company. “You know, ‘You are now approaching the River Styx, mind the gap’.”

“I was under the impression we just took the Tube in lieu of crossing the Acheron.”

Q squints up at him. “I believe this is called having hidden depths, 007.”

“Or you’re far too quick to dismiss me as a drooling Neanderthal,” Bond suggests casually, in no way referring to a certain mission in Rio, because according to MI6 there was no mission in Rio. “People have died for less.”

“If they died, it was because it was part of your job.”

“If they died, it was because you ordered it.”

The flood of ghosts is finally dying down to an ebb, so Q pushes himself to his feet and hefts the bag onto his back. His glasses give him a little trouble, until he sighs and holds them out to Bond. “Do you mind?”

Bond stares at them incredulously. “You trust me not to break them?”

“No, I’m just resigned to the fact that one of us will.”

Muttering something that sounds like a sarcastic ‘flatterer’, Bond tucks them away in an inside pocket. At least, Q thinks, they aren’t on the same side as the Walther.

When they step outside, it’s just like any other London Tube station, albeit in a distinctly abandoned state. A few dirty white tiles are missing here and there; the rusted benches are an excuse rather than an invitation. All the same, it stands as a far cry from North End. Q stifles a crazed laugh when he sees HADES emblazoned in black halfway up the wall, between the exits.

“Told you,” Bond says. When Q turns to say that he hardly thinks Bond said _that_ , Bond gestures to the thin black rectangle by the doors declaring in sun-yellow letters this to be the ACHERON LINE. 

Q informs him that he is a smart-arse, and, in lieu of any other option, follows the horde through the nearest exit. He trusts Bond to follow him.

\----------

All in all, Q isn’t sure if the Underworld is impressive or a massive disappointment.

The stairs are the same mysteriously damp stone as he’d expect of the Underground, utterly banister-less as well, although if anything they’re nicer because there’s no chewing gum to get stuck to his feet and huge crowds of tourists never block your way. Granted, that’s largely because you can just walk through anyone climbing too slowly. Q doesn’t recommend it though. It turns out you really do get a chill right down your spine on passing through a ghost, as if in vengeance they’ve reached out and scraped their nails downwards. Even Bond looks unsettled.

However, when they emerge into the sunlight…well, that’s the thing. There is no sunlight. In order to have sunlight, you have to have a sun.

A vast plain opens up in front of them, nothing but space filled with millions upon millions of ghosts joined regularly by thousands streaming out of exits emerging out of the ground all in a circle around it. Across the plain loom mountains, the size of which change depending on whether you look at them directly or out of the corner of your eye (a fairly new experience for Q, who feels faintly ill). Over the mountains is nothing but grey sky, as far as the eye can see. It looks open, yet the faintest of lines run across it here and there, pale as clouds, calling to mind nothing as much as veins in stone. Without a sun, the sky emits its own dull grey light, washing the landscape and its immigrants of all colour. He might make some quip about the Underworld being some sort of Platonic Ideal of Britain, except he knows it’s not ‘overcast’. It’s lit because it has to be, so the universe obliges the impossible thing with further impossibilities, and all colour leeches away.

Bond practically burns in contrast; his hair more noticeably blond and his eyes somehow even more painfully blue. Q hadn’t even realised that could happen.

He might stare too long, since Bond turns to look at him and raises his eyebrows in silent query. “Nothing,” Q says quickly, and sets a pace not too far off of running.

It really is incredible how many ghosts are present, from all walks of life and all manners of death. In his line of work, Q witnesses many gunshot and knife wounds, some bomb victims, the occasional poisonee, yet for the most part they lie in his cyberworld’s peripheral vision. Now, though, he tries to avoid intersecting with the drowned and the diseased and the simply-too-old, jumping out of the way only to rush through others.

Bond, of course, just cuts a path forwards, apparently unconcerned by such things.

“You have a remarkable ability to remain unfazed by anything,” Q mutters on catching up.

“Thank you.”

“You could _slow down_.”

“You could speed up.” Glancing around them, Bond frowns again. “They’re all watching you.”

“I imagine they’re watching _us_.” Q’s noticed a fair few with their gazes turned in their general direction, but he had been hoping for paranoia. He hates it when paranoia doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. “The living can’t be that common down here.”

“No, on the train as well,” Bond says slowly, “they’re definitely watching you.”

Which leaves Q shivering for reasons altogether besides his accidental intersection with a man who, on inspection, looks uncannily similar to Boothroyd, and any reply he might have conjured up for Bond is swallowed up in the sudden ache.

The plain really is impossibly big. (No signs of water, though, leaving Q feeling fairly smug about his Converses.) Q ponders why all the dumping stations are out here, when all there is to do is to move ever forwards, except he supposes at this volume even ghosts need space. “What do you think happens when too many of them merge?” he thinks aloud. “Are they too solid for anyone to get past? Is it like being alive again?”

Bond’s face is oddly drawn. “Does it matter?” he demands tightly, if anything walking faster, more impatiently. No doubt he’s wishing it was possible to get his Aston Martin down here. “Where are we going?”

“Now now, 007, we don’t know anything about this place, so all we can do is follow the locals.” Being a superior bastard at least makes Q feel a little better.

That is, until a low rumble shakes the very earth on which they’re walking. 

It really is impressive how fast Bond can draw his Walther.

“What was – ” Q starts, before being firmly shushed. 

After a pause, Bond reluctantly signals for them to move forwards. Q could kid himself that the dead look scared as well, although their survival instincts must be eroding at a fairly steady rate if none of the rest of them stop.

The rumble sounds again, and for a third time. The last time has an oddly familiar edge to it, something Q can’t place because it’s all he can do to keep moving forwards. They’re horrendously exposed out here, especially when you consider that everyone around them is dead and about as substantial as the air Q’s sucking in as he hopes he doesn’t look even half as scared as he feels. Bond, of course, might not be in his element but clearly has a mission forming in his head. “007, I don’t think you want to engage anything that makes that sort of sound.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“No, I will. Your job is to follow my judgement, for all that you love to ignore that. Furthermore,” he starts, and then the words die away, because he sees just where that rumble is coming from.

He was right: it did sound familiar. It sounded an awful lot like a growl.

There must be some sort of mist between the mountains, a mist which only lifts when you’re close enough to see through it, the way some fog seems to remain at a safe distance all around you. It doesn’t make an awful lot of sense, but then, neither does the possibility that either of them could have missed a sight like this.

Q breathes, “Oh,” because in that moment his mind is so full of fear and incredulity and mild hysteria that he can’t even swear.

Vaguely he remembers back when he had his little Greek mythology phase. While he’s never been a great artist, he did use to sketch sometimes, and especially if it meant trying to capture some of his crazed imaginings on paper. (Come to think of it, his mother always did seem to greet those pictures with some level of trepidation.) Of course, the image his hand produced never did match that in his head. It’s different with code.

Right now, he can see quite clearly in his mind’s eye a poor rendition of his idea of what a giant three-headed dog guarding the gates of the Underworld might look like.

Neither interpretation came anywhere close to this.

Matted, coal black fur, each strand as long as his arm; huge black eyes; teeth like broken shards of a skyscraper, framing a mouth which wouldn’t so much eat him as swallow him up without noticing it had done so. Q’s never been scared of a dog in his life, not even Mr Grover’s Alsatian at the end of the street or that Rottweiler that had appeared out of nowhere once when he’d been cutting through the park to get home. Right now, he realises that’s probably because he’s never met a dog the size of a double-decker before. And that’s before you’ve so much as considered the impossible but undeniable reality of three heads, each snarling or growling or idly snapping at the cloud of ghosts at its feet.

“007,” he says quietly, hoping that not raising his voice will not only not attract the dog’s attention but also cover up just how scared he is right now, “I don’t think shooting it will do any good.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Despite his words, Bond is eyeing it with the overly-casual air of someone certain that if he could just find the right target, he could move mountains. Or bring down Cerberus, same difference.

“So do you think we try to walk around it or – ”

At the exact same time he stops himself, Bond says, “I think he caught our scent.”

There comes that growl again, vibrating in their bones. The right-hand head bends down, dragging its side of the torso with it; the middle head reluctantly follows it down, whilst to the left, the third is pointedly pulling upwards, swivelling to maintain its monitoring of the dead. Wind whistles around them, except that down here there doesn’t seem to be any wind. It’s just the air being pulled in by those noses.

Then, impossibly fast, only in time for one of Bond’s bullets to bounce uselessly of that giant hide, Cerberus is right there, filling Q’s vision with black shining eyes the same size as him and an inquiring nose whose scenting quest pulls first insistently at Q’s clothes and then almost lifts him off the ground. Q regrets not bringing some sort of harp – that was what Orpheus used to get by, wasn’t it?

Operating on the instincts left after reason has fled, Q holds out his hand. He slightly misjudges the distance; he feels a horrible wet cold for the second before the head jerks back, letting out a low growl which makes the earth tremble beneath their feet.

“Sorry,” he says, because at the end of the day, he is British, before adding, “it’s okay. There there. Good boy.” Technically the words are no more meaningless than they ever are, but that means nothing next to how ridiculous Q feels now.

Bond informs him helpfully, “He can smell your fear.”

“ _I_ can smell my fear. Not sure what I’m supposed to do about it.”

He feels the rush of air around him as Cerberus smells him deeply. He’s never felt so much like prey in his life. Unable to stop himself, he closes his eyes.

Which is why he jumps so much at the feeling of hot, rough, wet flesh against his palm.

When he opens his eyes again, it’s to find himself confronted by all three heads, suddenly all arrayed before him with identical expressions of what he slowly realises are dog grins. There’s a repetitive thudding echoing around them which he belatedly traces back to a tail which could turn buildings to rubble.

Q wants to stare at Bond to plead for some sort of explanation, but quite frankly he’s too scared to move.

The centre head has its tongue hanging out, grinning surprisingly moronically for something so very capable of eating him. A beat later, Q connects the sight with what he now realises is saliva dripping off his hand.

The laugh escapes before he even knows it’s building. Automatically wiping his hand on his cardigan – he seriously doubts it’ll be salvageable after this – he reaches out again, this time with no resistance. For all that it looks terrifying and unkempt, Cerberus’ fur is quite soft to the touch, all but inviting him to bury his hand in it.

Bond watches the display in sheer disbelief. “I told you,” he comments, “Disney princess.”

It really has been too long since Q got to indulge his inner dog-lover. Cerberus hardly seems to mind, judging by the way the earth begins to jump as his tail beats it again and again, as Q drags his fingers through fur to feel out the sensitive patches. “You would prefer the alternative?”

Bond doesn’t answer ‘yes’. He doesn’t answer ‘no’ either. Instead, after what might have been several minutes – during which Q occasionally draws back only for Cerberus to at best look confused and at worse growl threateningly – he says, whilst still keeping his distance from the giant three-headed dog (in a rare display of self-preservation), “Are you planning on asking him directions?”

Q can’t help but laugh. “From a dog?”

Terrifyingly, Bond looks deadly serious. This must be how all his best ideas happen. “Do you have any better ideas?”

Q’s smile grows more worried. Still, if only because he doesn’t exactly want to startle either the giant three-headed dog or the clearly-insane field agent, he looks deep into those giant eyes and queries, “I don’t suppose you know where to find my father?”

He stumbles slightly over those last two words – something which he knows Bond noticed, and wishes he hadn’t. However, it doesn’t seem to matter. Suddenly Cerberus pulls back, not to full height but enough to make Q fall forwards into the space so quickly vacated. Before he can get too far, though, Bond yanks him back upright, apparently having decided that protecting an asset was more important. Q could almost be flattered.

The head returns, though, rushing impossibly and unstoppably fast. Bond knocks the two of them to the ground, shielding Q’s body with his own, which might be nice if it didn’t involve rubbing Q’s face in the dark grey dirt.

The head pauses over them, then, for want of a better word, nudges at the two of them. When Bond lifts his own head enough to look back in disbelief, the force of the second nudge knocks him off of Q. It’s hard not to be amused, although judging by the glare, Bond doesn’t agree. 

After a moment, Q realises that Cerberus is waiting, and when he pushes himself to his feet, there comes another more insistent shove towards the mountains. 

Brushing himself off – Q curses that his inventory didn’t include a camera – Bond considers the proposed destination. From the set of his face, he dislikes the plan immensely.

So does Q, for that matter. The mountains keep changing size, for starters, although closer up the range has settled a little more. (He will regret that pun for a long time to come.) There is also the matter of their guide, who keeps looking expectantly between Q and the mountains, whilst also looking at the tide of the dead trying to both crane their necks like bystanders everywhere and avoid the scrutiny of the Underworld’s gatekeeper. 

Faintly he comments, “They’re a rather long way awaaaaaaaa – ” The last word is lost when Cerberus, apparently losing patience, bends down to pick him up by the points of those giant teeth and move him over himself. Q has a rushing terrified impression of wind and hot breath and the grey landscape whirling by underneath and wondering whether he isn’t about to notch up one of the most unusual deaths in MI6’s long and proud history, before he is deposited like a squeaky toy on a pathway winding its way towards a charcoal-shaded forest. Frustratingly, he doesn’t recover fast enough to see Bond receive the same treatment.

Although quite how Bond manages to land impeccably, brush himself off and adjust his cuffs from receiving a lift from a giant dog, Q has no idea. Rather than fuming, as Q had maybe hoped, Bond just looks down at him in the dirt and asks, “Well?” In retrospect, Q should just be grateful he didn’t have to endure some sort of dog-related pun. Maybe Bond has finally hit maturity.

Q shrugs, looking back at where Cerberus sits, two heads turned towards them, the tongues of both lolling stupidly. “He seems to think we go this way.”

“He’s a dog.”

Deciding to pretend this isn’t utterly ridiculous, Q heaves himself to his feet and dusts himself off as well. Regrettably Bond has the monopoly on the ‘cool’ in this situation, since Q is left scraping at dog drool rather than adjusting a thousand-pound-suit. (Talk about the clothes you want to die in.) “You were the one who wanted to ask him for directions, 007. Ignoring them is just rude.” So saying, he hefts his backpack – he should have made more allowances for weight – and carries on up the path. After looking over the plain for a moment longer, no doubt posing for some unseen cameraman proud of such a grand establishing shot, Bond follows.

\----------

Soon enough, the path vanishes into trees: huge, thorny trees, of a species Q finds he can’t identify. “I don’t expect you to know everything,” Bond assures him, with the air of someone at least projecting the image of one lying through their teeth. Speaking candidly, Q’s getting a little tired of trying to untangle every last emotion of Bond’s. Especially because Q’s instincts keep insisting that something’s a bit off when they’re trawling through the bloody Underworld.

The trees are unnerving though. Some of the trunks…

“007,” Q says slowly, “do you remember any death legends about people turning into trees?”

Bond draws his Walther, clearly regretting ever holstering it to begin with. “None spring to mind.”

Q focuses on not breaking his step. “I think I read it somewhere. It wasn’t Greek mythology, though.” A glance back at Bond and he almost falls over his feet. That tree wasn’t there before. “I just don’t like how they’re looking at us.”

Bond doesn’t even ask. He takes point position in front, leaving Q to try to remember in what order people usually die in horror films in the woods. All that comes to mind is the Red Dwarf scene revolving around the same question. 

The wood avoids the clichés of the sun-dappled path and shuffling mysterious animal sounds. Unfortunately, it wholeheartedly embraces the looming branches and treacherous roots. The trees all emanate the sense that if it weren’t for previous blood oaths they would gladly reclaim the pathway as their due, nothing but bare dirt as it is otherwise. Occasionally there comes a crack, a whisper as if from wind – except of course there is no wind here.

Q risks a look back. The path is still there. The trees along it are not the same. He’s certain of it.

Still, Bond sets a fairly brisk pace and reacts to the slightest loud breath from Q with a scowl and a gesture for quiet, so Q at least can pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. After all, it’s not like his entire job seems to revolve around observing Bond stumbling into trouble again and again. Not once has he seen Bond do something supposedly normal only for armed assassins to appear out of nowhere. Q is definitely in the presence and protection of one of the least incident-prone agents MI6 has ever produced.

He’s meditating on how utterly dead they both are – well, he is, Bond has the advantage here – when the first branch grabs at his shoulder.

All credit to Bond’s reflexes: he turns and fires the moment Q’s startled yelp rings out. Even when he registers the sight of his Quartermaster yanked backwards by coiling thorny branches, he only hesitates a moment, and it certainly seems as if that’s to assess the situation rather than querying the insanity of it.

Q notes all this because doing so is infinitely better than focusing at the thorns clawing at him, ripping through anorak and cardigan and skin with very little resistance, or the branches snatching at his ankles.

Said branches only tighten the more he fights them, more so when Bond joins in the fray. Q does not appreciate the _Evil Dead_ parallels his mind offers up. It could, after all, be doing something constructive, like suggesting ways out of this. He’s not sure what he’s yelling – it could be anything from ‘help’ or ‘fuck’ right through to various threats as to Bond’s fate should Q be eaten by a tree – but he’s fairly certain they get a lot more colourful on realising that Bond is actually fighting to get to Q’s rucksack, hanging painfully off of one arm.

Q only remembers about the knife a second before it glints in Bond’s hand.

Bond’s precise tactics are less than impressive and everything Q’s come to expect of the 007 school of improvisation: hacking at branches and firing at close range at the wounds to blow them open. Q might complain if it weren’t working. Already what grips the branches managed are loosening, the thorns leaving cursory final cuts as they retreat. If Q didn’t know any better, he might say that not only are the target trees in pain, but those gathered in the background are retreating.

His arms display a mess of rent clothing and bleeding cuts. One particularly friendly branch scored a gash across his cheek. What a mess.

He glares at Bond, who’s dangling the knife with a little too much familiarity between his fore-and-middle fingers, and hisses, “If you utter a single syllable of a pun about how that was a ‘thorny situation’, or anything associated with trees, or vegetation, or Bruce Campbell, I am feeding you to the dog.” He’ll admit the last is for the simple vicious pleasure of watching the reference go whistling over Bond’s head.

Bond just raises an eyebrow and does not offer to return the knife. “Gratitude doesn’t come easily to you, does it?”

“Pot,” Q growls, “Kettle.” Frankly he doesn’t appreciate the reminder. Instead he jerks his head down the path. “Let’s get this over with.”

The trees keep their distance the rest of the way. The whorls and knots resemble screaming or woeful faces, and Q refuses to speculate.

\----------

The wood ends. The instant it does so, they can see why Cerberus insisted on sending them through it – overly-friendly trees or not – because the vision which confronts them from their new vantage point can only be the house of Death. The idea of it being anything else suggests things about the universe which Q personally would rather not consider.

Quite frankly, the whole set-up is one inappropriate thought away from becoming ridiculous. 

Part gratuitous cathedral, part Victorian monstrosity of a mansion, it’s almost too Gothic to look at head-on. It’s all sweeping arches and soaring spires and crenellations and several more architectural features Q can’t remember the name for right now. It’s an asylum designed by Hollywood, and Q laughs a little hysterically because he’s not sure how else he’s supposed to act.

“Slightly ostentatious,” is Bond’s verdict, which says it all, really.

It doesn’t get any better as they descend, either, looming higher and higher over them. The size does not work in its favour. With some buildings, size works to impress, to establish superiority. Here, it just seems to working far too hard. Really, it’s like Dracula went to live with the Addams Family. Q can’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for the place.

There’s a large dark oaken door, inset with metal and carved with ancient symbols, because of course there is. It even has a large brass knocker, as if the architect had procrastinated by watching every Hammer Horror known to mankind and then bashed out a blueprint in five minutes. Quite frankly Q is embarrassed to even look at it. It’s bad enough having to actually use the knocker – because there is no way that a polite fist against the wood is ever going to be heard.

Except the moment his fingers brush against the metal, the door slowly creaks open before them.

Before Q can steel his resolve and gird his loins and all the rest, he finds Bond’s arm barring the way. “I’ll go first.”

“Why?”

“You don’t think someone who can’t die should be on point?”

“We’re in the land of the dead, 007. I wouldn’t put too much weight on that immortality of yours. Besides,” he adds, frowning as the thought occurs to him, “I’m not sure how dying would work here.”

“A shorter trip.”

Giving Bond a look turns out to need some slight adaptation now that Q doesn’t have his glasses anymore. Fortunately, as ever Bond is giving him ample opportunities to practice. “Optimistic as ever, 007.”

For God’s sake, he tells himself. It’s just a door. Stop acting like it’s about to bite you. You survived Cerberus, you can survive this.

He’s stopped, however, by Bond’s hand on his shoulder. Blinking a little in confusion, he follows the line of the arm to its owner, who is suddenly examining very intently indeed. As usual, the attention makes his skin flush, heat chasing its way down the back of his neck. Carefully keeping his voice steady, he manages, “What is it now – ”

He doesn’t get as far as Bond’s number. It’s a little hard to talk when someone’s kissing you.

Q lets out a muffled squawk of surprise, instinctively recoiling in surprise, except Bond follows him back until he’s trapped against the door jamb. Bond’s mouth is blisteringly hot, the same as the hand which comes up to rest on Q’s shoulder, Q’s neck, cupping the back of Q’s head. Down here, where Q’s been not-quite-cold since the train, the heat comes as a complete shock, making him curl up into it, seeking out more, reaching out to pull Bond in closer. In response, Bond growls, and apparently decides he’s done with the courtesy of not immediately plunging in open-mouthed. 

It comes as no surprise whatsoever to discover that Bond’s idea of tongue is pretty forceful, and Q doesn’t even try to engage in the treasured cliché of a duel, seeing as he already knows he wouldn’t win here. Instead, for once in his life, he’s more than happy to give way, if not submit entirely, letting Bond set the pace and doing his best to match it. His hands are still holding on, gathering clumps of expensive material and hopefully creasing it, his right seizing on the back of his collar and pulling backwards; one of Bond’s has gotten tangled up in his hair at some point, tugging in a way that should be painful except that Q’s vaguely aware that the sounds he’s making indicate anything but.

And then just as suddenly as it started, it’s over. Q lurches forward slightly without meaning to, into the space where Bond was a moment ago, and looks around to see the agent in question back where he had been before as if nothing had happened.

Bond nods towards the door. “Shall we, then?” Without waiting for a response, he pushes it fully open and strides through, not quite swaggering but definitely not how normal people walk.

Q stares after him, livid, wondering if he can lift this ‘blessing’ of his just by wishing hard enough that Bond would just spontaneously combust.

Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately, Q hasn’t always excelled at grand confrontational speeches – he doesn’t get a chance to argue about either Bond’s sense of timing or _just what the bloody fuck was that_ , because then they’re inside what he’s going to insist on calling a ‘house’, which proves more than distracting enough to sideline the argument (for now).

Truth be told, Q would be hard pressed to say what exactly he’d expected. The ostentations of the painfully gothic outside had certainly conjured images of half-remembered Dracula films merged the more suspense-oriented end of Hitchcock, but nothing truly concrete. Not a single room whose size has been borrowed from a cathedral, the sides and corners full of shadows but the centre picked out in a candlelight without any candles to cast it. The chandelier far overhead, ivory as far as he can judge from down here (or possibly a different kind of bone), carries no explanations; the same applies to the brackets far up the walls. When he stares too long at the wall, windows fade into being, only to vanish the moment he flinches away.

However, the centrepiece of the room – its function – lies at the top of the vast sweeping staircase which dominates, fills the space, inevitably drawing your eyes up to what lies at its top.

There’s a throne, magnificent and eldritch: a thing of twisting shadows and spiked iron and the majesty gained through fear. It doesn’t look all that comfortable, but then, that probably isn’t the point. (Besides, who’s to say that the god of death can feel discomfort?) Calling it ‘black’ seems something of an understatement. There are no skulls or sigils or any other arcane or morbid flourishes, and it doesn’t need them. The (for want of a better word) building around it is almost hilariously macabre, but this throne is the moment the joke turns sour and bitter in your mouth.

It is also empty.

Q deflates slightly. If he’s honest with himself, he didn’t have a plan after this point. Yes, he followed the lead of a giant three-headed dog to get here, and yet that remains the best strategy he’d conceived. He’s not really sure what to do next. 

He feels Bond still next to him – the subtle settling of shifted weight and narrowed eyes. At first he thinks he’s bored – it’s Bond, there are no explosions, boredom is what anybody would assume – until he reminds himself that this isn’t James Bond on hated downtime, but 007 on a mission, however unofficial that mission might be. Which means that, given that Q is not in the same mindset, he is the one most aware of their surroundings right now. Which means that he’s spotted something.

A glance upwards gives him an eyeline to follow, over to the shadows in the corner of the chamber; a small mental adjustment to take account for the melodramatic (not a large adjustment at all, in these surroundings) shapes a darker patch into a vaguely humanoid shape. A blink, and like one of those magic eye pictures, suddenly someone who might be called a person is standing there, as if he’s always been present. 

The phrase ‘clothed in shadows’ isn’t one Q normally prefers. For all that he does have the tendency towards melodrama common to geeks granted access to a room with many computer screens, the language side of it often makes him twitch. Nevertheless, there’s no other way of describing it. Not unless you want to admit that those shadows look like something far more intrinsic than merely clothes.

Above them, though, lies a paleness which quickly resolves itself into a face – a human face, even, although the familiarity does not serve to recommend it. Even at this distance, something strikes Q as alien, wrong. If he weren’t so desperately trying to hang onto something logical and real, if only in his own head, he might describe it as an aura. Which would be absolutely ridiculous, of course.

The eyes, though. He might not see the face clearly from this distance, but he can still make out the eyes. It’s not that they’re not there; more that they’re dark enough, hollow enough, to create the illusion, right up until you feel them piercing through you. The rest of the face is a mere excuse – window dressing – in the context of those eyes.

“Think I recognise those cheekbones,” Bond murmurs, and the twat doesn’t even have the decency to grunt when Q elbows him in the gut.

Truth is, Q has some idea of what Bond means – but only to a certain extent. Q’s been told by one or two of his more fanciful exes (although that suggests there have been a fair number) that in the right light he can look a little ‘otherworldly’. It’s one of the many comments which have now taken on a painful sting in retrospect. On this man, this being – his father, it couldn’t be anyone else – however, the effect is rather different: no matter how the light strikes his face, it creates the impression of a skull.

His father moves closer, only beginning to ‘walk’ when the legs consent to form themselves. With each step, he solidifies, the shadows reluctantly settling and wrapping themselves around and around to form a torso, arms from which bone white fingers can emerge, finally consenting to ripple and layer into a suit which even Bond might be cowed by.

(Q chances a glance. Possibly Bond approves of the suit, but that’s all his face deigns to show.)

The approximation of a mouth – lips, teeth and tongue apparently all present, but without the imagining of a potential smile – opens to release something dark and liquid, with the suggestion of a hiss, which once again only later grows into a voice. It’s not unpleasant, by any means: rather it is unsettling pleasant, like hearing an old friend for the first time in, oh, so very long indeed.

“Doran, wasn’t it?”

Q blinks a little; can’t really help it. The instinctive hurt is underwhelmingly banal. Perhaps, at least in this, there is something normal here. “Dorian,” he corrects. So much for Death knowing all.

“No,” his father disagrees with a dismissive shake of his head, brushing off the name with a thoughtful frown, “it was definitely Doran.”

It’s only a beat later – a beat and the awareness of Bond’s amused smirk – that Q realises that they possibly have the same frown. It gives his words a little more bite than intended, especially when he realises what it is about the phrasing that bothers him quite so much. “You mean you _said_ Doran.”

His father inclines his head regally. “It’s Gaelic, like hers – I thought she’d appreciate that. Means wanderer. I suppose she had her own joke in mind.”

But of course. Of course Q is nothing but the centre of a joke. Quite frankly it’s how he’s been feeling for a while now. “’Wanderer’. Charming.”

“Or exile, if you prefer,” his father offers with a casual upturn of his hand. 

“Much better.” Q pointedly ignores Bond’s evident amusement.

“Still, best to respect your mother’s wishes – I assume she had her own plan in that respect. I suppose I should also offer my congratulations.”

It’s no real comfort at the present moment that the sudden surge of heat to Q’s skin does at least make them look a little less alike. His splutter of “Why?” remains hideously mortifying nonetheless.

Apparently that mouth is capable of forming a smile. From the tensing of Bond’s muscles at his side, Q isn’t the only one thrown into fight-or-flight at the sight. “On visiting, of course. You’re the first to do so – well, the first to arrive before his time.” Mercifully, the eyes move on to Q’s right – Bond – although he doesn’t feel like he escapes their notice. “And with company.”

Assigning specific emotions to him would be misleading, Q reminds himself. Otherwise, he might name the tone somewhere in that darkness ‘disapproval’.

Presumably Bond starts to give his usual introduction, as a wave of the hand cuts him off. “I know who you are, James Bond. Better than I’d prefer.”

Q can’t help it: the look he shoots Bond might have some concern and obviously confusion, but it also includes the question _have you ever met the god of death before_. In his defence, Bond does have a tendency to warp reality around him, so ‘impossible’ shouldn’t be used in relation to him. He holds on to this as Bond returns the look with one of disbelief, before turning away to address Q’s father himself. “What do we call you?”

“In a sense, whatever you wish. I’m a concept; there are so many names for me. You’re both English, so the Grim Reaper would be traditional – or Azrael, or Satan, if you’d like to condemn me. However, since Dorian seems to prefer a more Greek angle on things – ” Q can’t help the query which escapes him, for all that it’s ignored “ – perhaps the most apt on this occasion is Thanatos.”

Q queries, “Not Hades?”

“I’m the god _of_ death, Dorian, I don’t rule them, save through a certain respect for my position. Now,” Thanatos goes on, imperiously cutting off any further questions, “since I hardly think this is merely a social call, especially with such company, might I ask what precisely you want of me?”

Now they’re actually here – both of them, after an impossible Tube ride and directions from a three-headed dog – the words catch in Q’s throat. He realises that at no point has he considered precisely what to say. Oh, he’s had some idea, with regard to the subject obviously, but the precise phrasing has completely passed him by. The few notions contemplated even late at night fly right out of his head. He feels fucking ridiculous, right here and now, in his shredded and muddy clothes and his face blotchy with red from leftover embarrassment and anger and his hair undoubtedly a mess from Bond’s hands. He feels young and hopeless and so stupid in the face of an actual god, in the face of _his father._

After a moment though, he remembers Bond’s presence; remembers that he isn’t having his little crisis alone – and it says too much about them that the boost he gets from the realisation isn’t comradely encouragement, but rather that he can’t fuck up because Bond will never let him forget it.

“I would have thought it was obvious,” he says, unconsciously slipping into the same persona he used the first time he and Bond met: the gratingly superior, well-spoken, controlled little shit who can’t possibly be wrong, who is deigning to talk to you only because you might be of use to him. He gestures elegantly and pointedly to Bond (ignores the trace of family resemblance), says nothing further.

Thanatos’ smile comes less threatening this time, more amused. “I prefer clarification before action. In my case, it usually works out neater.”

Swallowing a little of the assumed pride, Q admits (careful not to make it sound as such), “I don’t know how I did it; I thought it best not to experiment.”

“As I said: neater.” 

“Are you going to help? It wasn’t an easy commute.”

“I’m more than happy to.” The phrasing unsettles Q, despite his best efforts; worse is the expression on Thanatos’ face as he turns once more to focus on Bond, now slightly behind Q. 

Before Q can question it – before he can do anything, anything more than start to turn his head, everything happening so fast and slowing down at the same time – Thanatos gracefully lifts a hand and clicks his fingers.

From the depths and all around them comes an echo, if an echo could be louder than its source.

Q turns fully in time to see Bond hit the ground.

\----------

Thanatos might be talking. Possibly Q is too – possibly he’s saying something articulate, something real, rather than the incoherent strings of nonsense words filling his head, where they can find space in the ringing and the absolute silence that covers everything. He falls to his knees and it hurts, he thinks, only he doesn’t feel it the way he should. All of his attention focuses on Bond – on Bond’s body, _fuck_. His fingers reach out for the neck (you don’t want to take it at the wrist, not if you want to be sure there’s nothing, mandatory first aid courses whisper in his ear), already knowing they won’t feel anything. When they make contact though, it’s even worse than he’d imagined, because Bond is already cold. It feels more like he’s been dead for a while (a few weeks, the blood and stomach acid running together out through the knife wound as he dies alone save for the voice in his ear), and Q remembers the unbelievable heat barely five minutes ago, so hot he thought he might catch fire.

“I didn’t – ” he manages, then, “You just – ” and if either were complete in his head, they don’t stand a chance in the world.

He doesn’t cry. Later – when his thoughts start making sense again, more than basic emotions and screaming – he might be proud of that (or ashamed). As it is, his stomach churns, and he has to push back and away as he retches. Nothing much comes up, stomach in as much pain as the rest of him, but he can’t make it stop. He coughs and maybe cries in pain, and the spasms keep coming. 

Thanatos asks, “That wasn’t what you meant?” and clicks his fingers again, the sounds impossibly loud in Q’s ears, and Bond’s body vanishes away into nothing, too fast for Q to even try to hold on to.

“Stop! Just – Just stop it!”

Q sits back, kneeling as he just stares at the space where Bond was, hand clamped over his mouth as if that might hold it all back. There’s definitely a scream building, one that, if it starts, might never stop. Distantly he realises that he’s rocking back and forth slightly, in time with the mental looped soundtrack of _no no fuck no_ … Like the aftermath of an explosion, his thoughts are cascading every which way, crashing into each other, leaving scatters of recollections hither and thither and all of it nothing but denial.

He has no idea how he reassembles himself. It comes slowly and methodically, small bursts of rational thought pulling him back together. Maybe it’s when he visualises a system reboot, that’d make sense within the image everyone has of him; or maybe it’s when he tells himself that he is the Quartermaster and he needs to act like it. Maybe, just like everyone else, he forces it all back until later, recognising that life doesn’t exactly have a pause button. Regardless of the reasons why, he sucks in air to steady himself and carefully stands once more.

When he turns around, Thanatos is watching him with clinical interest. Truly the pinnacle of fatherly compassion.

“What,” Q says carefully, bolstered when his voice doesn’t shake nearly as much as he expected and even risking climbing to his feet again, “was that?”

“Death,” Thanatos replies simply. “I would have thought you’d recognise it.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.” The last word almost cracks. Damn.

“You asked me to help.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Thanatos just smiles the patronising smile of someone so convinced of their own rightness and the inadequacy of the other’s understanding that nothing could shake their resolve. Q knows it well; it comes to him easily enough. 

Interestingly but not unsurprisingly, on the other side, it riles Q like nothing else.

Evidently Thanatos recognises something in Q’s face, for he rearranges his features into a facsimile of concern – poorly rehearsed – and offers, “Let’s talk.”

Q looks around at the overly-ostentatious throne room; imagines any discussion involving his father seated up there, all power and glory and unquestioned majesty. “Here?” He piles in all of his disapproval and disbelief. There’s a lot of it to spare. “You want to have a serious discussion here?”

“You would prefer something different?” In the seconds it takes Q to look around, the world around them _shifts_. Thanatos is now lounging in a high-backed chair the likes of which Downton Abbey could only fantasise about. It looks like a throne crossed with an armchair, the illusion of comfort falling across the undeniable impression of power, pulled up to the sort of vast table across which upper-class characters share biting commentary on each other’s failings. Being only human, Q blinks, and suddenly finds himself in what could be any café in London – albeit one with no other customers or staff, only vast views of the long queues of souls he’d caught glimpses of through the previous gothic arches.

“Are you saying that Hell is a Starbucks?” he quips, defensive measures instinctively rising against yet more of the unknown, yet more of his carefully controlled world falling away around him. “Because I could have figured that out on my own.”

Thanatos just lights a cigarette – why not, Q thinks a little hysterically, lung cancer must be a rather secondary concern around here, second-hand smoking merely a remembered concern – rather theatrically summoning a flame from his thumb to do so. Something about it rankles: too much of a performance, too close to a reference rather than reality.

His brain offers him a recollection of Disney’s _Hercules._

It feels good to laugh at something down here.

_Forgive me for wanting to add an element of the ridiculous._

His smile fades again.

Thanatos comments, “Jokes to make light of the dark. How very human of you.”

“Funny that.” Q drops into the booth opposite Thanatos. “What’s all this supposed to be?”

“Metaphorically? Symbolically? What you’re seeing can be changed in a heartbeat, Thanatos. We’re going Greek because that’s what you were expecting when you came down here. You heard ‘Underworld’, you heard ‘the realm of the dead’, and your mind jumped straight to the shapes you know best. Would you prefer something else?” 

Before Q can say anything, his father’s face melts and warps as easily as candle wax. It reforms into that of a woman, one side undeniably beautiful, the other dead and decayed; into a man who true features are hidden behind a lurid painted skull and beneath a jaunty top hat; maggots crawl over the skin of a Japanese lady with angry, betrayed eyes; the olive skin of an actual Greek god; a perky goth girl, ankhs on proud display; a literal skeleton which grins at him from the depths of a cloak as black as midnight. It cycles through them all, each transformation as gruesome as the first, each appearance seeming so natural in turn, as if that form has always been sat there. By the last, Q is gripping the edges of the table so tightly not only his knuckles but his hands turn white. He doesn’t run; he refuses to run.

He looks death in the eye and he does not run.

The Grim Reaper’s face fills, as if with Playdough, and Thanatos grins at him. “If you’d come ten years ago, we’d follow the pattern of _Sandman_ ; before that, whichever mythology took your fancy that week. Now you’re older, and you think you’re wiser, so your mind simply jumped to the familiar, with a few alterations. That’s all.”

Q takes a deep breath; slowly lets go of the table. Needless to say, the edges are imprinted into his skin. He’s not impressed, he tells himself. Not in the slightest. He just has to show that. “Nothing Greek about the Mansion of the Damned back there.”

Thanatos’ grin does not fade. If anything, it grows broader. “Can I help it if you disapprove of your own idea of Death’s house?”

Any comebacks sound less than satisfactory, so Q decides to let that one go. His thoughts are running a little slower, anyway, more like tar than anything else. It feels like they have to push their way through some sort of barrier. Unfortunately, Q’s capacity for self-delusion must be caught in there too, because he has a horrible suspicion as to the reason why.

He weighs up how much he wants to have father-son bonding time against how much he wants to have any other conversation at all. The answer does not surprise him. “I appreciate the distraction, but would you care to explain why my agent is now dead?”

To his credit, Thanatos’ face hardly flickers – although the same can’t be said for the shadows curling behind him. “You call him your agent?”

“What else would I call him?”

Truly, Thanatos epitomises the stillness of death. Coincidentally, it bears an uncanny similarity to the stillness of one determined not to give a single thing away, deciding that no expression remains safest.

Instead of an answer to the immediate question, he shrugs – impossibly casual, impossibly human, so very very wrong. “I refuse to apologise for righting a wrong.”

“It was wrong to save him?”

“You might call it saving him; I call it breaking the rules.”

Oh, Q almost wishes that he’d phrased that differently. Describing it in any other way might have led to a reasonable discussion. Now, though, he can feel himself bristling, the hacker who danced along the line of moral relativity circling up from the depths, and there has never been anything to guarantee his disagreement quite like reducing it all to a case of the rules.

Before he can say a word, though, Thanatos says calmly, “No.”

“No, what?” Q asks, and his voice has evened out into the deceptive pleasantry which hides the shark beneath the surface.

“This isn’t like your human laws, Dorian. I know you don’t care much for those; I certainly don’t.” The sentence structure sits uneasily in Q’s mind, and it takes a moment of disassembly to pinpoint the reason why: the assumption in the scaffolding. Thanatos says _I know you_ when he means _you must be like me_. “This is not negotiable. Besides,” he adds, as if this has just occurred to him, “It’s not as if I cut a grand long life short. James has been giving me trouble for years, and I will not deny that finally settling the matter carries no small satisfaction for me.”

Appropriately enough, Q feels dead inside. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Dorian,” Thanatos says, drawing it out until it becomes more of a threat than a name (not his name, the name given to him), “if you are so determined to play the fool I know full well you are not, let me make it a little more obvious.” A theatrical wave of the fingers, and Thanatos is holding the first page of a rather substantial pile of densely lettered A4.

“You mean you haven’t computerised yet?”

“I am making a point, Dorian.” Thanatos glances at the sheet of paper with the air of someone who doesn’t need the reading. “Just in the last year, I have him drowning in an iced-over lake and then going for a walk in temperatures just short of freezing, dangling from a lift, being shot at – a fairly standard occurrence, obviously – shot off a moving train into a river, which should have covered a fair few eventualities – ”

“I’m aware of his record.”

“ – and of course once you go into his back catalogue, you find collapsing buildings, poisoning – there’s a reference here to being bitten by mosquitoes so frequently he’s immune…” Thanatos tosses the paper aside, for it to vanish along with the rest before it can reach the desk. “James Bond should have died a million times over long ago. This is me collecting. At last.”

Q stares at the space where the papers were. The fluidity of the reality here, he can’t entirely cope with it. As for Thanatos’ words, he understands what they mean, but they bring their own dull hurt. “So good to know that Death carries grudges.”

“Dorian – ”

“Q,” he corrects. “Officially my name is Q. I earned that.”

“Why should I care? You’re my son.”

“Some people might say that’s a contradiction. Besides, I wasn’t aware being your son meant anything. Being the Quartermaster, I earned it on my own merits, without anything from you. You’ve not exactly been an overwhelming presence in my life, so don’t make it sound like I owe something to you, least of all obedience. You certainly won’t get contrition.”

Thanatos leans back in his seat, one arm spread along the back and vanishing into the shadows which gather far more closely and intimate than Q – than anyone – would prefer. Frankly, the lighting is starting to get to Q. He prefer the kind of lighting setup and quality which burns itself into your retinas and destroys all concept of an internal clock. Within Q Branch, you only acknowledge the outside time by whether you’re drinking coffee or tea, and possibly how much alcohol is involved. He supposes here they don’t care what the real time is either. All the same, the ominous overdramatic constantly gathering shadows make his eyes hurt.

None of which Thanatos cares about, naturally. He just cares about impressing the audience. “Do you find that information comes quickly to you? Not just about death; about anything you want?”

“How is that relevant?”

“Death can be associated with knowledge as well. Hermanubis: the Romans believed an embalmer was equitable with a thief and messenger.”

“How does that – ”

“What about animals? You find certain types like you more than others?” When Q doesn’t immediately respond, he offers, “Dogs, for example? Crows? Cats?”

Q shakes his head. “You can’t – ”

“What’s the connection between them, Dorian? They come to you because they can smell death on you, and something in them responds to that call. If you went to the desert, you’d find vultures gathering long before your water ran out. Even if they didn’t realise it themselves, they’d be following you to other food.” Thanatos sighs. “Not that they would realise it. Very stupid birds, vultures.”

“You can’t take credit for everything about – ”

“Do you like flying?”

Q stops, mouth regrettably hanging open. 

“Well? Do you like the idea of leaving the earth behind, or do you prefer to travel underground?”

Staring at his father, Q remembers flight after flight picked out in the full Technicolor of fear, never to leave his mind. He has nightmares, screaming nightmares, and he has to send messengers to make international deliveries when he works for MI6. Nothing – not even this, not even underground in a malleable impossible open air space – nothing fills him with instinctive terror quite like flying.

(Conversely, nothing soothes him quite like the Tube.)

“You’re my son, Dorian. Throughout your life, the one truth has been that you are my son.”

Quietly, Q says, “So give me Bond back.”

“No.”

“Then,” he pauses, gathering himself, “let me win him back.”

The silence has an odd ring to it – as of something vibrating, high and clear, beyond the edge of Q’s hearing.

Drawing back into his shadows, Thanatos examines him with the eyes not of a father, but of Death itself. “What makes you think this would be possible, Dorian?”

“Precedent.”

Thanatos’ face did not change. This might have worked as a tactic, if Q didn’t have quite so much experience with secret agents with terrifying amounts of control over their expressions.

“There are all sorts of legends of people travelling this far for people they – ” He stumbles. “For people close to them.”

“Those legends rarely end well.”

“Death – you – always lets them have a chance. I want you to give me that. You owe me, after what you did.” 

That last slips out, regardless of Q’s intentions. It hangs there, huge and frightening, between them, and the shadows gather so close that all Q can truly discern of Thanatos is that skull’s head.

“Very well then,” Thanatos hisses, eyes dark and piercing and dangerous. Q meets them, and doesn’t let a trace of anything cross his face. If it’s a challenge, then he intends to win it. He intends to prove that, if nothing else, it’s Thanatos who should want him as a son, not Q who should want him as a father. “If you cleave to precedent to save you, then precedent is what you shall have.”

“Who did you have in mind?” Q asks steadily.

“Oh, let’s keep it Greek. After all, I wouldn’t want to confuse you.” Q rather prefers it, now that they’re settling into something a little more threatening. It feels like they’re getting somewhere. “Let’s say, the standard Orpheus deal: if he follows you home and you don’t look back, you get to keep him.”

“Sounds easy enough.” Q never did understand what was so hard about following one simple instruction. He likes to think that’s why he has so little sympathy for Orpheus’ eventual fate, although no doubt Thanatos would claim it’s more a matter of allegiances. Actually, thinking of that makes him root for the doomed musician in a way nothing else ever has. 

Thanatos is watching him as such thoughts tumble through Q’s mind, the spark of _something_ in Death’s eyes. He should leave it, he knows. Given that this is truthfully a little over-generous, especially given that Thanatos has hardly warmed to him – no doubt there’s a joke in there if he thinks hard enough – he knows he should get out of there. Pick up the rest of the information somewhere less, well, dangerous. Granted he’s in the Underworld, but away from its ruler still seems a good start. It’s definitely what he’d advise, were it Bond sitting here, with Q observing from his own detached kingdom.

Only here’s the problem: Q sees better from a distance. He _thinks_ better from a distance.

It makes him a good backseat driver, but not the best in the field.

Quite simply, Q is nothing without his curiosity. A trait that’s not exactly associated with a long life-expectancy. And in this scenario, rather than murmuring it safely over the comms, to be ignored or conveyed according to another’s interpretation, he says aloud and straight to Thanatos’ face: “What’s the catch?”

The crack of Thanatos’ lips stretches into a wide, unnerving smile. A skull’s grin given illogical flesh. 

“First, you have to find him. Second, you have to convince him to follow you, not just to the train but all the way to the other side of the turnstiles.

“And third: the very moment you turn away, regardless of reason or success, you can’t look back. Not even once.”

Q considers this. He considers his chances, and the other traps no doubt lying in wait.

Then he holds out his hand across the table, following Bond’s rule that faking it is a perfectly decent second option. “I believe we have a deal.”

“Oh, do you?” Thanatos mutters, but takes Q’s hand nevertheless. Q forces a smile to hide the shiver at the chill of his touch. “Remember: you’re never too young to die.”

They shake once, and Q quickly pulls back again before he can get caught in one of those ridiculous shows of one-upmanship, fighting to squeeze harder or anything like that. Instead he pointedly breaks eye contact to pick up his rucksack, swinging it onto his back as he stands and succeeding in not stumbling as he does so. Feeling a little foolish all of a sudden, the inevitable awkwardness of saying goodbye at the end of a family reunion which has been less than perfect, he announces, “I’ll best be on my way, then.”

“Feel free to find something else to wear before you go.” When Q stares at him in confusion, Thanatos waves a hand to indicate, well, all of him. “If you will go forth into my realm, then I simply ask that you wear something a little less shredded.”

“It’s your trees that did this,” Q objects sullenly, overjoyed as ever to have someone critiquing his wardrobe. 

Thanatos elegantly raises two fingers to rest against the side of his forehead as he smiles unsettling at him. “Are you so sure they were trees?” When Q stills, trying with all his might to at least freeze his expressions before any horror at the implication, the line of that smile parts to make way for the predatory glint of teeth. “It’s hardly my fault if ghosts flock to you. They can’t help it either.” Q says nothing. Still grinning, Thanatos lifts his fingers away again as the room swirls and returns to its previous grandeur as the improbable throne room. “The trunk through there. When you’re ready, you can leave by whichever door you choose.

“Oh, and Dorian?” Q had dared to follow that indication, and when he looks back Thanatos has vanished. Instead he sits aloft, brooding and powerful in his throne. Q was right: he didn’t want to talk here. Sat resplendent in shadows, Thanatos looks like a god. “Dorian, this isn’t me cleaning up your mess anymore. You are asking me for a boon.

“Do not think you can do so again.”

With that – not so much as a ‘good luck’, Q notes – Thanatos’s features grow fuzzy save for those dark eyes as the lines of his suit lose distinction, blending into the throne before merging into those shadows, until it all melts away, the face becoming nothing but ivory detail not unlike a scream on the arch of the throne, and Q is for all appearances left alone at the bottom of the stairs. 

(Exactly where Bond was standing, he doesn’t let himself think.)

Sucking in a calming breath, he announces, deliberately loud and echoing in the emptiness, “I have met far worse drama queens than you.”

\---------

Q finds the trunk as promised in a room just off the main hall, thankfully not requiring him to ascend the grand staircase and no doubt a gothic tower or two, or roam cobwebbed corridors by torchlight. Mundane, he can handle. Inside it – and here he sighs in resignation – lie the kind of clothes he feared. No, there isn’t anything heraldic or covered in skulls, which is something. He doesn’t think he’d pull off Death Eater very well. However, there is a black silk shirt, the kind that tries to slip out of your fingers the moment you pick it up and makes him seriously consider wearing the tatters he’s already got on. It probably wouldn’t do, though, and he resigns himself to looking like a twat. At least the trousers aren’t silk as well, or leather, which was the other option.

The Converses remain, however, on principle.

He closes the door behind him – still gothic but more like a back door or, no doubt, the servants’ entrance, so understated enough for him not to be embarrassed just to be touching it – pulling awkwardly at the collar of his shirt as he does so. It’s not that it’s too high – quite the opposite, in fact. He feels exposed like this.

Or perhaps the clothes are mostly bothering him because the alternative is thinking about something else altogether.

Q swallows tightly, feeling it push its way down a reluctant throat. Reaching behind him, he dislodges a water bottle from its side pocket and takes a moderated gulp, but it makes little difference. It’s not dehydration scraping him dry.

 _It might be soon, though,_ his mind helpfully supplies. It’s not like he knows where he’s going, and as he said to Bond – 

His body freezes along with his mind. For a moment all he can see is a crumpled mess of an expensive suit; all he can hear is _Isn’t that what you wanted?_ There’s a space at his shoulder and it’s huge, too huge, vast and void and sucking him in.

Christ, Bond’s dead. Bond’s _dead_. James Bond is dead and Q’s father killed him and Q led Bond right to him and now Q’s alone, alone in the land of the fucking dead and he doesn’t know where to start, where to go, Jesus fucking _Christ_ …

Dimly his surroundings flicker in his vision, through the sudden panic. At some point he slid down the wall into a protective crouch, fingers yanking at his hair. _Bad habit,_ his scrambling thoughts comment, and Q hasn’t cried in years. He doesn’t now, either, but somehow the thought matters. It matters, in some way he’s not even sure of. Just the same as how for once he actually feels what people mean when they say he’s too young.

_Never too young to die._

The words are only a memory, only the voice associated sounds so close – of course it does, it’s in his head – so vivid that Q suddenly finds himself jerked up and away from the wall, stumbling down the corridor. He feels a shadow at his back, like someone reaching out for him. When he spins around, overbalancing a little from the weight of his backpack, there’s nobody there. However, the shadows look a little too dark, a little too fluid, and that’s enough to keep him moving away. 

The floor slopes down, flagstones merging apparently seamlessly with the ubiquitous grey mud en route. The ceiling arches up, curving away; at some point it vanishes. He might be in a cave, or more optimistically a tunnel. At least the latter suggests a way out.

Of course he has no idea where he’s going. If there’s some sort of innate sense of direction born into sons of Death, then he has no idea how the hell he’s supposed to access it. Besides, he reflects a little crazily, Thanatos was pretty clear that there’s a difference between the ruler of death and the ruler of the Underworld, so maybe immortality powers are all he’s got going for him. 

The sound which escapes might be a laugh and might be a sob. It isn’t clear even before his hand clamps over his mouth, stifling and warping it into a mess to match his head.

“You could turn back,” says a voice from overhead.

At first he can’t see anyone, as he spins wildly around in a circle. All he can see is that at some point the roof of the tunnel opened up, making this more of a – what? a crevasse? The word sounds good, and no doubt appropriate; it certainly seems like a crack in the world.

Then he spots her: effortlessly smooth and smiling, taking a drag from a cigarette holder as she watches him. He supposes lung cancer is a joke more than anything, down here. 

“Why would I do that?” is all he can ask. 

She raises an elegant eyebrow, and abruptly her image flickers, the same as all those poor souls on the train. Her hair cascades in a tangled mess down her shoulders, and there’s the suggestion of a bullet wound before her torso vanishes behind the rock outcropping. Q can’t help but flinch, and he knows she sees.

“You don’t know where you’re going,” she points out. He scoffs, more because admitting weakness has never been his strong point. “Why not turn back whilst it’s still easy?”

Q hefts the bag purposefully forwards, pulling it tight against his spine. “Why would I give him the satisfaction?” The anger, it’s good; it keeps him distracted. Holding onto it, he turns away and starts walking again.

Perhaps it’s his imagination, but he fancies he hears her voice echo behind him. _“Just remember why you’re here.”_

Why he’s here. Right. _Think like the Quartermaster_.

Fact: 007 is down – stranded in enemy territory.

That last part causes a slight frown, but he ignores it in favour of the illusion. Reduce events to nothing but facts, and the rest will follow.

Fact: In lieu of any agents in the vicinity, Q himself has been forced out into the field to locate him.

A slight stretching of the truth (at best), but again, the illusion is what matters.

Fact: Q’s current resources consist of one (1) backpack, containing water for two, what food remains (must inventory that later) –

Beneath his feet the mud starts to give way to something more solid

\- one (1) distress signal, one (1) whistle –

Grey rock takes on a more regular, square outline, arranging itself in neat rows in front of him, as the walls begin to lighten with occasional flickers 

\- one (1) knife, one (1) copy of _Lord of the Rings_ –

Rock turns to squeaky white tiles, the walls open up to reveal lights in fluorescent tubes, and Q comes to an abrupt stop.

It’s not that he’s underground again. It’s not even that once again he’s in an actual room, where no room should exist.

It’s that he’s seen this room before.

From behind the car, a man straightens up, and his breath catches in his throat before escaping in a single impossible consonant.

“Q.”

Quiet as it is, the acoustics are such that it rings clear – no accident, he knows, a favoured quirk of the design. As such, it catches the attention of the old man in the white lab coat, who after a second of surprise favours him with a wide, open grin.

“Ah, Mr Gray! I had heard you were in the area!” Q – the other Q – beams up at him from a tangle of wires. “I don’t suppose you could give me a hand here? The wires are giving me a little trouble.”

For a moment Q just stands there, staring at him. It’s him all right: the other Q, or the only other Q who ever mattered. The one who in charge when he’d been hired – or brought in, depending on how you saw events. The one who’d not only welcomed him into his branch, no questions asked, but pushed and pulled and advised and scolded and generally taught Q everything he’s using now to run the same department.

The one who’s been dead for almost two years.

Something twinges in his chest, suddenly hot and painful and both hollow and full. He thinks it’s his heart.

Then, moving on automatic, he feels the weight of the bag drop from his shoulders, and he moves over to help.

There’s no power down here. That’s the only thing he can think right now: that there are no power outlets in the Underworld. He hasn’t passed any power stations, or seen the slightest hint that there’s anything to fill a similar function. Whatever this equipment’s running on, it’s, well, not really there.

However, that doesn’t stop it from looking very real. That doesn’t stop the man next to him prodding at it, muttering to himself.

“I don’t suppose I could trouble you for the spanner?” comes the voice, and it’s pure instinct for Q to peer into the…thing and identify precisely which one ‘the’ spanner is, because not once were such commands specified and rarely was an incorrect guess treated as anything less than so very utterly disappointing.

Helplessly standing there, still not entirely sure what he’s looking at – he’s dazed and disoriented, he knows that, but then things also look a mix of the familiar and the blurred, and whilst this isn’t the most outwardly horrifying ghost he’s encountered, bereft of gunshot wounds and bleeding sores, it’s the most recognisable, a horror all of its own – Q stares at the ghost and repeats faintly, “Q.”

“Ah. There, I fear, I may have to disappoint you.” Wires are pulled out and left hanging over the edges, as others are pulled in further. “After all, the Quartermaster might hold his role only ‘til death, and as we are currently in the realm of the dead and this old ticker – ” a pat of the chest “ – no longer ticks, then it is safe to assume that I am dead. Therefore, I’m afraid you will have to address me by another name, and it will satisfy me simply to be called once more ‘Boothroyd’.”

There’s an old joke-cum-mantra around Q Branch: the only thing the upper echelons can’t budget are your words. Q – Boothroyd – is where it started.

“So, Mr Gray, care to lend me a hand? I’m afraid you’ll have to pick it up as we go along, but I have every faith in you.”

The words don’t mean much. They’re just how Boothroyd always spoke, familiar in the way that makes it feel like somebody’s seized hold of Q’s insides. All the same, the last phrase, for all that it’s delivered casually and partly to the object in front of Boothroyd, still gives Q pause. 

It just feels like a long time since anybody’s really had any faith in him.

Moving into position next to Boothroyd – the same height difference as before, Q never knew him as anything but old – Q squints down. “What is it?”

“Does it matter?” Boothroyd passes Q a penlight. “Talk and work, Mr Gray, if you must talk at all.”

Later on – when he has a chance to think, when everything else has fallen away and he looks back with rather different eyes – Q will realise a few things.

First and foremost, for all that he remembers the focus of his mind, the way everything slotted together so simply, he will never be able to recall what it is that they worked on together, down in the Underworld. There’s an idea or two, but surely they weren’t creating and fixing an idea alone? Surely there was something real taking shape between the two of them?

Except few things in the Underworld are real, and ghosts do not create them.

In the present, however, something stops him from realising it. He goes through the motions, slipping into the timeless world of tinkering, allowing himself to sink into the familiarity of it. Despite Boothroyd’s words, which often lapse into silence without a true conclusion, it’s not all that hard to pretend that nothing has changed: Q isn’t Q but Dorian, warily following the real Q’s lead, not sure if he’s being played yet slowly admitting to himself that even if he is, this is far preferable to the alternative. The point at the back of his mind isn’t that in this past, Bond is alive, since they haven’t even met yet. 007 is one of Boothroyd/Q’s many muttering subjects, a joke and an excuse for technological mayhem.

“Is it going to explode?” he asks.

“Hopefully not while we’re working on it,” is the jovial reply, “I’m not sure if I have any fire extinguishers for you.” Being a ghost, Boothroyd is released from the pesky problem of safety measures. Somewhere behind the grandfatherly façade, after all, lies a mind which devised a car with machine guns and cannons for oil slicks.

Truth be told, Q reflects as something sparks a millimetre before his fingers, without Boothroyd’s enthusiasm and with a visual on accounts, he couldn’t always see the practical appeal. 

“Your successor wasn’t much good.”

“Oh?” Boothroyd asks distractedly, reaching behind him for _something_ whilst carefully maintaining pressure with his other hand.

Q hands him what he’s searching for, forgetting the moment it leaves his hand what it was. “He made an invisible car.”

“Did he really?”

“Then he handed it over to 007.” Q rather thinks that leaves its fate more than evident.

“Ah, excellent! Hard to keep agents like that down, you know. Admirable, really – most admirable.”

Q says nothing. The illusion shatters.

His mobile phone/taser is a leftover from a previous challenge. As he told Bond, there’s little chance of it ever being mass-produced. He rather likes that. 

On reflection, maybe he understands why Boothroyd gave everything over to an agent guaranteed to wreck them.

“Something on your mind, Mr Gray?” Boothroyd remains, to this day, the only person Q has ever allowed to make the Dorian Gray jokes. Maybe it’s because when they started, Q was just so relieved not to be shot; maybe it’s that Boothroyd hid his dark side very well indeed, not a trace of malice to be mistakenly attached to his choice of nicknames; maybe there just had to be someone.

Boothroyd reaches out to take the tool hanging from Q’s fingers, and this time their hands touch. Boothroyd’s skin might not be sallow and sickly at this precise moment, but it’s ice-cold, enough to make Q flinch back. It’s not the skin of one of the living.

Technically it only confirms what Q knew all along. All the same, it hurts all over again.

“I met my father. My, well, biological father,” he clarifies, unsure at first why he feels like it needs to be said. Then he realises: for all intents and purposes, Boothroyd is the only father he’s ever really known. Q’s known a few male mentors here and there – his tutor at uni is the obvious one to spring to mind, utterly wasted in the department but content to keep his physical head down and venture no further in his life in exchange for the wonders of the web – but Boothroyd hadn’t given the boy recruited rather than executed so much as a second glance. “He’s…not quite what I expected. Although that could be my fault. Visualising a god. It’s not as easy at it sounds.” 

Remarkably unruffled by the reference to an actual deity, Boothroyd muses, “Few things are.”

“Now 007’s dead.” Something pulls at his face – it might be sadness, and he hopes it is, but there’s every possibility it’s that insanity he felt at confronting Boothroyd’s own passing, the smile as your body fights to deny it all. “It’s my fault. I’m trying to fix it, but…”

Q bites his lip.

In the quietest, most pathetic voice he can imagine – a voice nobody ever wants to use, the voice which only emerges when you’re close to tears and the world is so incredibly huge and heavy and there’s nothing you want more than to be a child again – that small child’s voice cracks as he admits, half-whisper and half-restrained sob, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Boothroyd looks at him steadily for a moment, before sighing and straightening up himself. He stretches, bending backwards with his hands planted in the small of his back, blowing air out from puffed cheeks, all the familiar signs of the same aches and pains he would complain about if given half the chance and a victim who clearly believed him to be less than he was. That’s something Q’s quite willing to admit he borrowed: drawing on people’s expectations and assumptions to make them underestimate. The only difference is, one of them was in the position much older than anybody might prefer, and Q, well, as Bond so kindly pointed out, occasionally Q still gets spots.

Already the low heat of humiliation is burning through the vulnerability. All he can do is try to cover it up. For example, there’s something that’s been bothering Q for the last however-long-he’s-been-here. “Do you still feel pain?” Granted, he seems to be the only one who sees the gaping wounds, the ravaged skin and the bleeding which will never stop, on everybody he passes, so the fact they don’t seem to hurt might not be so unusual, but Boothroyd is the first he’s seen who acts like this. What’s more, lumbago just seems such a banal concern for the deceased.

Boothroyd pauses, shoulders settling back but hands still in place, before smiling broadly. “I suppose old habit really do die hard, Mr Gray.”

Q lets himself smile at that. He doesn’t particularly want to, and no doubt it’s more than a little tinged with sadness, but he supposes it is a little bit funny.

“Now, Mr Gray,” Boothroyd goes on, brushing down his lab coat, “do you remember the Pyjamas Incident?”

Boothroyd’s habit of changing subject in a manner which clearly seemed so logical to him – Q and his fellow subordinates dubbed it ‘butterflying’ – always vexed others so. Q’s not sure why: it quickly became natural enough for him to follow the ebbs and flows, enough for understanding to readily return without needing to think. It doesn’t throw him for a moment. “When you were so insistent on my presence that you sent a car to pick me up from my home at 4am, and they didn’t even let me change?”

“Was it really 4am?”

“Yes,” Q insists, with a real smile this time.

“Good Lord,” Boothroyd comments, “time is such a funny thing, don’t you think?” Q only nods, waiting for the rest of the story. Not that he doesn’t remember, of course he does, but until Boothroyd finishes the story he won’t explain how it’s relevant. That’s the way this works.

“So, there you were: some confused young thing with huge eyes, like a puppy – ”

“I did not have puppy dog eyes.”

“I’m the one telling the story, Mr Gray, and you most certainly did. Your glasses didn’t help – those are new ones, yes?”

“I got them a few years ago.”

“Before or after I died?”

Q can’t remember. It sticks in his throat.

“Hmm. Well, anyway, there you were, only missing your teddy bear – ”

“I really don’t think your memory’s as good as you think it is.”

“I don’t think it’s good at all, in general, but then, death seems to have been very good for it. All these incidents which seemed long gone. Yes, I distinctly recall the first time I met Rose…”

“Sir,” Q cuts in. “I do have a slight time limit here.”

“Well, that’s exactly my point. Or part of it, anyway.” Q looks at him in incredulous incomprehension. It’s not an expression he makes a point of letting anyone see – just the opposite, in fact. “I told you we had a problem that took some level of skill with, well, computers.” The dismissive edge to the last word brings not annoyance but a wave of fondness. Q knows full-well that Boothroyd was far from oblivious when it came to the changing face of technology. After all, he’d helped change a not-insignificant amount of it. It’s much the same as how Bond is far from the reluctant dinosaur Q had admittedly sunk into the trap of assuming him to be. It’s just that in the end they’re all slaves to Moore’s Law, and with lives and the country on the line, there just isn’t always time to play catch-up. Easier for Boothroyd to pretend to be old and senile whilst still gathering all the information he can; all part of the act.

Q plays along himself. “Because you naturally didn’t have the slightest clue what to do.”

“Ah, the arrogance of youth.”

“The ignorance of the old.”

They both grin at each other.

_Age is no guarantee of efficiency.._

_And youth is no guarantee of innovation._

“So, we gave you a problem and said ‘fix it’ – fairly standard, that – and you blinked those big eyes and you know what you asked for?”

“A cup of Earl Grey.” Q’s face twists a little at the memory, no longer entirely sure what it’s doing. “And you wouldn’t give it to me.”

“ _Au contraire_ , Mr Gray. I said you could most definitely have it…once you’d fixed the problem and saved the world.”

“I could have done without you actually brewing it and waving it in front of me.” Q paused, then added, “And telling me it was getting cold.”

“And when you were done and I gave it to you?”

Q sighs. “Best cup of tea I’ve ever had.”

Boothroyd nods sagely. “Ticking clock, Mr Gray. You and 007: time limits focus your minds.” When Q falls silent, he adds, “It was 007 you were helping that morning, however indirectly. Did you realise?”

Q frowns, both surprised and confused. “Are you sure you’re not making that up?”

“Positive. I don’t hand off 007 to just anyone.” Boothroyd looks at him significantly. “You’ve been saving him even longer than you realised.”

“I seem to recall that precise task involved quite a lot of destruction. I suppose I should have expected nothing less,” Q says, running a finger along the table and thinking about over-heated wires and poor fire safety regulations. It really is terrifying what you can destroy with half a mind and a good enough grasp of the world. “I mentioned it to him, actually. No details, but the first time we met, I told him I could do better than him before my first cup of Earl Grey.” He smiles to himself. “He made some comment about my pyjamas.”

“Of course he did,” Boothroyd tells him. “007 is 007.” He shrugs. “Was, perhaps, but only given his mortality status.”

Q freezes. 

“So the question is, Mr Gray, do you understand what I’m telling you?

“You were a skittish little thing when you joined us – seemed convinced if you put one toe out of line they’d haul you off to Belmarsh. I knew you couldn’t be forced out of that shell of yours; that we’d have to coax you out. And voila: mission accomplished, 100% success, minimal civilian casualties, and all before your tea got cold.” 

Abruptly Boothroyd’s gaze sharpens, any pockmarks of the old age which killed him wiped away clean. “You have a time limit, and you have incentive. I fail to see your impediments. 007 needs your help. To us Quartermasters, rarely does something else matter more than that.”

Q hesitated, one hand scratching the back of his head, before he turned back and asked, “Where do you think I should start?”

“007 was always a bit of a mystery to me, I’m afraid,” Boothroyd admits, turning back to his work. “Beyond the penchant for explosions, of course: I might not have liked what he did to the equipment, but it can be so refreshing to meet someone who fully appreciates the possibilities of an applied explosive.”

“He just likes blowing things up. He’s a human wrecking-ball.”

“Which is why our job is to point him the right way.” Boothroyd shrugs. “Perhaps I simply preferred him to you bright young things. He prefers more tangible assistance. And appreciates good scotch.”

Q rolls his eyes in recollection. “The real test.”

Boothroyd inclines his head in acknowledgement, before musing, “Perhaps you should find somebody who knew him a little better – someone he might actually visit, given the opportunity.”

Q screws his face up, not exactly in confusion. “He’s a Double O. They’re not exactly well-known for sentimentality.”

Boothroyd confides something in his components. If Q didn’t know any better, he could have sworn it sounded a great deal like, _And yet here you are_. 

Before he could follow any such ridiculous ideas, however, Boothroyd coughs extravagantly – _old habits,_ Q reminds himself, eyes narrowed in suspicion – and says a little too loudly, “You might recall that there is someone you both knew, and who, I think, you both had sufficient respect for to trust her advice, if not always follow it.” He looks up at Q, eyebrows raised significantly. A moment later, the penny drops.

“He did like dropping in on her, welcome or not,” Q agrees. “He’s started doing it to me too, now, actually.”

Boothroyd looks surprised, albeit pleasantly so – the expression oddly reminiscent of his mother’s, come to think of it. “Quite the privilege, I assure you.” He does not elaborate on how a secret agent stalker is supposed to be a privilege, and Q recognises when questions will only be deflected by painfully exaggerated curmudgeonly behaviour.

“Any ideas about where I can find her?”

Boothroyd looks rather amused by the question. “I’ve seen her, if that’s what you mean, Mr Gray. But, what’s the phrase: the journey is what matters.” When Q looks at him blankly, he elaborates, “If I’ve been following this entirely,” meaningless white noise really, this ruse of ignorant senility never worked on Q, not once after the Pyjamas Incident, “you have some resources of your own down here with us. I ask you: in what story does the hero always receive perfect directions? That rather defeats the point.”

Q realises he stopped thinking about this in terms of the story a while ago. About when Bond’s body hit the ground, he thinks, and it all became that little bit too real.

“Go report, Mr Gray. Seeing the world clearly and logically was always her speciality.”

From anybody else – from Raoul Silva, he thinks with an unwelcome involuntary shudder – it might have been an insult; from Boothroyd, it rather sound reverent.

It occurs to him that this is goodbye – a proper goodbye, this time. Unless he sticks around. Except that would surely mean this ‘mission’ had gone tits-up.

Neither of them are much good at proper goodbyes, though. 

“For what it’s worth,” Boothroyd announces to his work, “I am proud to call you Q.”

Whatever words might have been on their way out abruptly freeze and choke in Q’s throat. He can only stare at Boothroyd, no doubt wide-eyed and ridiculous. The only conscious thought to make it through is _At least this time I’m not in my pyjamas._

With a smile and a nod, Boothroyd presses a button beneath his desk. Q can only watch as everything – the machine (whatever it is, henceforth Q will never ever know the truth), the desk, and mentor all, ascend upwards into the ceiling, and gone.

It might be a repeat, his interface of a memory informs him. But nevertheless, it is one hell of an exit.

\------------

Aimless wandering: that _is_ how things work around here?

Q scowls at another identical grey featureless corridor and thinks that this is a stupid way to run another plane of existence. With each turn, details melt away, until all he can tell is that this is rock. Which rock, he has no idea. 

Even better, he discovers that when he does decide to light a fire to accompany eating out of sheer boredom – not that he’s hungry, not that he thinks stopping will help, just something to relieve the monotony of walking – he discovers that light and heat don’t work. His lighter clicks mournfully in the silence; his matches don’t even spark. (Wary of the tricky nature of the latter, he tries several before he’s convinced.) 

Reluctant to let go of an idea, he makes the additional discovery that the average survival bar tastes rather revolting.

“Stupid,” he complains through another disgusting mouthful, on the basis that nobody cares. There are ghosts now, passing by and staring at him avidly, but as coarse as it sounds, he already finds he’s not overly concerned with their opinions as to good table manners. “I know it makes sense,” he adds to himself, “it’s the world of the dead, but you’d think there’d be perks for family.” He doesn’t even know what he’s saying.

From behind him, a familiar voice says, “I’m so sorry you’re disappointed.”

If Thanatos was hoping for a satisfying reaction, he probably shouldn’t have tried that tactic on someone used to Bond – especially when the thought of Bond is enough to make Q angry where he might have been scared. Instead, Q chews, swallows, and asks without looking around, “Are you checking up on me?”

“I’m giving you the chance to admit you made a mistake.”

“Such fatherly motivational words. I can see now what I’ve been missing out on all my life.”

“I don’t want – ” Thanatos stops. Strangely, Q has the impression that, were breathing something Thanatos did, here he would sigh heavily. “I thought you might now have some conception of the dangers you face.”

Q laughs. “Empty tunnels? I am from London.” He doesn’t remind Thanatos of his claim with regard to Q’s affinity for the Underground. That would imply that he was right. Instead, resentment bubbling under his skin, he informs him, “You did give me the opportunity to talk to someone who actually acted as a father to me, though. Magnificent display of compare and contrast.”

He turns his head just enough to look up his father with all the superiority he can muster. If Thanatos wasn’t already a being of the colours of bone and shadow, Q might describe him as ‘pale with rage’.

Repentance doesn’t come easily to Q. All he can think is that two can play at this game of arrogance.

“Really,” he goes on – this is where he goes wrong, he’ll know that later, he technically knows it now, he never can let these things go in person – “I’ve no idea what you were concerned about. It’s a piece of cake.” With a smug smile, he takes another spoonful of beans, thinking that it’s the appearance of the thing that matters rather than whether or not he actually wants to.

Behind Thanatos, the shadows begin to gather. Both far ends of the tunnel vanish into swirling darkness, creeping along the walls and across the ground towards them, until small tendrils bite out at Q’s feet and curl towards his shoulders. Thanatos’ face looms out, whiter than ever, less a corpse and more a ghost, the moon, everything that you never wanted to see when you opened your eyes in a dark room but always knew was there. Were it possible – and it’s not possible, yet Q is confronted with it nonetheless, the world twisting as his father warps it at his whim – Thanatos’ eyes are darker than all the blackness around them. More than coals or obsidian, they deepen into an absence, black holes to nowhere which watch him regardless, sucking him in.

Q thought he’d been scared before. Apparently he was wrong.

“A child knows better than to provoke a god,” comes a voice, deep enough to be felt in the bones and ringing from all around. Thanatos’ mouth does not move, and does not look like a mouth anymore, the illusion of a face beginning to stretch under the strain of containing its concealed truth. “We are quick to anger, and we do not forgive easily.”

A tendril snatches at Q’s wrist, and when he yanks it away, he can still feel its cold touch.

“‘A piece of cake’?” the voice repeats, and Q suppresses an insane terrified laugh at the incongruity. “Then I shall do my best to satisfy your expectations.”

It’s not unlike drowning; taken by a vast wave of darkness, crashing down and swallowing him whole. Nothing to see; nothing to hear; nothing to feel but intense, breathtaking, stomach-churning cold.

And then, just as suddenly as it swept over him, it’s gone. He blinks in surprise in the not-light, unsure of precisely what has changed. His surroundings look different – his father has vanished, for starters – but he couldn’t say precisely how. One nothingness looks rather like another.

He takes one wrong step – or perhaps a right one – and suddenly he is outside. More specifically, he finds himself on the side of a mountain, one skidding foot away from a plunge into oblivion.

Somewhere beneath the screaming panicking _oh God not like this_ , he registers that it’s not a bad view.

Only during the scrambling frantically backwards does he realise something else: his bag is gone.

All there is left is a single bottle of water. An apology, he might imagine, if he hadn’t just looked into the face of Death and hence lost all faith in something that human.

_Fuck._

Q never did learn to keep his mouth shut without a computer to funnel his smart-arse remarks into. The fact that he hasn’t felt hungry yet is very little comfort indeed.

Reminding himself that he does at least have a genuine landscape feature to deal with is little comfort, what with almost falling to his death (if permitted) and all. Still, he takes up the water he’s been left – he tries to say ‘thank you’ to maybe score a few points, but he just can’t bring himself to do it, instead settling for “bastard” – and pushes on. He can’t help but feel that something like that only makes this more personal. It’s not just about bringing Bond back where he belongs: it’s also about dragging Bond away from a god who thinks he can keep him. Not on Q’s watch.

The path forks ahead of him. Naturally.

Sighing, Q reaches into his trouser pocket and produces a biro – passed over for some reason, perhaps by virtue of being on his person. He doesn’t know if it’ll do any good in terms of marking the walls, but he knows better than to plunge into this sort of thing otherwise. If Thanatos wanted to up the ante, Q has no doubt as to what he might be capable of. (He knows what sort of tricks he himself might pull, even without that sort of power.)

Scribbling until he produces some sort of mark which might be an arrow – this really won’t last long – Q follows the direction indicated, and heads onwards.

\----------

He heads up. He heads down. He avoids the tunnel down which echoes the roar of something that might be a dragon or might be something worse.

Paths twist and turn; judging by his marks, they also intersect, where no pathways from that direction existed before.

The ghosts start to appear shortly after he starts, wandering even more aimlessly than before. One or two he tries to engage in conversation, just to ask for some bloody directions, to no avail. They look straight through him, or at him but with vacant eyes. After the first few he tries to ignore them: that kind of despair is contagious.

His pen snaps against the wall and he lets out an uncharacteristic scream as he hurls it away. 

“This was your first,” he hears, a woman’s voice, oddly familiar. When he turns, he finds the same woman he saw right outside Thanatos’ mansion, cigarette still held in her hand. She’s examining a mark on the opposite wall, for all the world as if she’s critiquing in an art gallery. As Q watches, a wound appears in her back, her hair a tumble encrusted with blood.

It might be his original arrow on the wall. He’s not sure it matters all that much. “I don’t know where I’m going anyway.”

“You’re chasing someone who doesn’t want to be found,” she tells him, as her cigarette returns to her fingers with unbroken nails. She never smokes it, he observes. It’s about as real as her clothes – as the rest of her. “Some of us lose ourselves in this labyrinth. You might call it a second death, of the mind.”

“I don’t.” Q stays where he is, steadying himself against the wall. “Who are you?”

“I suppose you haven’t heard of me.” She turns to offer a fake smile – the finest. “Séverine.”

Q restrains himself from an ‘oh’, just barely. The mission file flickers through his mind, as she herself flickers between her two states, several times in quick succession. Nervous, perhaps, or deliberately unsettling. Her eyes are calm but her fingers tremble, and he doesn’t know which belongs to which persona. The files fail to match the reality of the gunshot to the chest, gleaming to catch his eye.

“Are you going to tell me anything useful?”

“I just did.”

Q narrows his eyes. “Then there’s nothing else, is there?” 

He turns to go, and she tells him, “Spend too long down here, he might not let you go again.”

More than anything, he just wants to see the sky again. “Your experience isn’t universal.”

“It’s more so than you think. Eating binds you to this world, and everybody has to eat. At least,” she adds, swanning up into his peripheral vision, “they do if they don’t want to become a permanent addition anyway.”

He looks at her sideways, unsure of how to react. If that cigarette were lit, he knows, she would take a draft of it now. It vanishes with the rest of her suave appearance, yet even in discarded-death, she watches him coolly. Without being sure how, he knows that she watched the distant gun with the exact same expression.

“Why are you helping me?”

Séverine does not answer. She lifts a hand to point down a tunnel that might not have existed before – unless it’s where he started from, in which case the mountainside is the one whose existence is questionable – and without the concealing black of her eveningwear, an old tattoo still stands out clearly against her corpse-skin.

“The most dangerous way,” she mutters, “but better than wandering forever.”

Q hesitates, but he can’t question the logic. _Bond would choose in a heartbeat._ The thought’s hardly finished before he’s following her pointing finger. Keeping safe is precisely how not to find Bond, he tells himself, with more firmness than the supposition probably deserves.

(Behind him, Séverine’s cigarette flares briefly with firelight.)

When he looks back, Séverine has vanished – but then again, so has everything else behind.

Swallowing, he reaches out to touch the wall, keeping his hand there as he walks along. In lieu of a pen, this will have to do.

The light ahead turns strange, brighter here then darker there, for all the world like torchlight. It summons up image of underground temples and Indiana Jones, and he tries to remember whether Bond ever mentioned seeing them. The remembering takes a little more effort than he expected. _Star Wars_ , that was for certain, but not the new trilogy, and Q clings to that memory a little harder than necessary. Bond liked (likes) Harrison Ford, and Q, Q might have mentioned _The Fugitive_ , or maybe _Ender’s Game_ , depending on whether he ranted or not as the discussion meandered.

Actually, memories in general fight back. The air too feels oppressive; the wall far too grounding. Thought slows down. 

Whatever he was thinking about vanishes.

His fingers brush over a door and he comes to a halt, not knowing why. It can’t be that such a door exists: the Underworld is peppered with these sorts of impossibilities, these bites at reality, these reminders that wherever he is, it isn’t anywhere he’s ever called home. But there’s something about this door; something that pulls at him. 

_Go on,_ it invites. _Open me._

“But there’s no handle,” he says aloud, not even sure who he’s talking to. For all he knows, it might be the door.

Only then he looks down, and of course there’s a handle. Why wouldn’t there be? Q wants to open the door, and therefore there’s a handle. Why would it work differently?

Smiling a little at how silly he’s being, he runs his hand across the polished metal. Even down here, where warmth is purely academic, it’s cold to his touch.

 _Clever boy,_ it hums, and he stills.

He’s frozen in place. Every muscle in his body has seized up, but none of them can do anything if he doesn’t tell them what to do. It’s an order he can’t give, not right now.

Slowly, dragging it up through the weight of dread, he reaches out with his other hand. The air itself feels heavy, resistant. It doesn’t feel like reaching; it feels more like _pushing._

His palm lands, pale fingers splayed out against the dark wood.

He _sees_ –

He runs.

He runs without fully understanding what he’s running from. In fact, that’s exactly it: if he stops, he’ll think about what it is; more importantly, about what it means.

Tunnel after tunnel, door after door flash by, blurring along with his thoughts. His chest burns, and he still runs.

Abruptly the way terminates in a broad oaken door. It’s all Q can do not to slam against it. As it is, his feet skid, the Converses naturally poorly equipped for such demands, and a quick turn means it’s his non-dominant left side which takes a hit. It’s hardly as forceful as it could have been, but solid oak is solid oak, and very unforgiving towards puny flesh.

His chest heaves, his breath reduced to shallow unhelpful mind-numbing gasps, and with every second he wonders whether it might not be easier just to vomit and have done with it. Idly he wonders whether he should be glad that he’s running hot, sweat running down to the small of his back, and the analytical side wonders why that should strike as so odd. Another side altogether reflects that at least he doesn’t have to worry about his glasses slipping down his nose. He probably looks ridiculous enough as it is: this panicked, unfit, gangly geek of a boy, spooking at shadows.

(Don’t think about it.)

A plastic top hits the ground and it’s all he can do not to try to drown himself in the water. It’s painful to control his sips; to stop himself drinking all that he wants. Wouldn’t do to run low – not when he doesn’t feel much closer to any sort of end.

Slowly – possibly too slowly, fuck he’s out of shape – his breaths even out, and he stops feeling like he’s about to die. It’s an improvement he’s willing to accept.

And, as his thoughts settle down into a more reasonable and less fractured state, he considers the door.

He supposes he could go back. Find another way through the mountain. He’s certainly not willing to try any more of these.

Only this door doesn’t feel like the last. There’s no hazy fog in his mind, and when he slammed against it, there’d been no shadow. As ridiculous as it sounds, it had just felt like a door.

He lets his fingers brush cautiously against it. Nothing.

There’s something familiar about this door, and he supposes there isn’t much else to go on otherwise.

He reaches out and knocks.

A voice from inside – female, authoritative, makes his spine straighten in automatic and possibly trained response – calls, “Come in.”

As he turns the handle, he thinks, _I know that voice._

He opens it sufficiently to stick his head around. 

“Q,” she acknowledges.

“M,” he nods.

“Well, don’t just stand there like a schoolboy,” she scolds, leaning back enough in her chair to level him that very particular glare, “come in and don’t cause a draught.”

Q does what anybody else from her tenure at MI6 would do in his position: he obeys without question.

\----------

“Take a seat. No need to stand around cluttering up the place.”

Sitting in the deliberately uncomfortable and deliberately lowered chair provided – he remembers this thing, he’s always hated it, of course she kept it here – he reflects that this doesn’t do much to change the schoolboy picture apparently presented.

M watches him closely. This was always a great trick of hers, he remembers, and it is something he frankly hasn’t missed in the least. The current M – Mallory – doesn’t intimidate in quite the same way. He disarms with casual talk and casual swearing, building up the politician and destroying the image just as easily, prowling through the corridors of MI6 to pop up without warning just as you’re doing something which isn’t strictly official for no other reason than to catch you at it (Q isn’t sure if Eve taught him this or vice versa or if they’re just two terrifying people who arrived at the same conclusion from different places). Mallory’s predecessor, however, rather than walking freely and mysteriously through her kingdom, simply built up her throne room into a place of mythical importance, lending her surroundings supernatural power whenever you entered her _sanctum sanctorum._

(And yes, Q will continue to use such words despite his new experiences of their meanings.)

Mallory is everywhere; M, when she did leave her realm, could be anywhere. One scares Q more than the other, and that doesn’t change when blood begins to seep through the side of her jacket and drip towards the floor, never to land. When she opens her mouth to speak, Q hopes he doesn’t flinch.

“Christ, you’re still a child. I had hoped that might have changed with experience.”

Despite all of that, Q can’t help but bristle. Unfortunately, his first instinct is to demand why people keep saying that about him, which doesn’t sound like it’ll help at all. “It’s good to see you too, ma’am.”

“Is it really? I would have thought you’d have enough trouble with ghosts already.” This is a trick question. Or something. Somehow. He stays silent to be on the safe side. “I suppose I should have guessed you and Bond would make for a fatal combination. But then, I suppose he was supposed to be dead when I promoted to you.”

Q recalls. The ‘death’ of 007 had been all people could talk about, before HQ exploded and gave them two topics. Q had been summoned to M’s temporary office – her corner of the evacuation zone as she surveyed the scene and issued orders and battlefield promotions together – to hear her angrily discussing the security leak with Tanner. From the encouraging smile, Q had guessed that Tanner was the one who’d suggested him. M had turned, given him a onceover, and unexpectedly revealed in a two words that she’d known precisely who he was, with the almost honorary title _Boothroyd’s boy._ Looking at him closely – far more closely than Q was accustomed, almost enough on its own for him to turn and run – all she’d said before striding off to mediate more madness had been _Fix it, Q._

“You seemed to have faith in me at the time.”

“I had faith you were the best man to fix the current problem. That’s the problem with battlefield promotions: you don’t have time to think these things through.”

Q kept his eyes fixed on her face, away from the hole in her side which came and went like a pulsing accusations. He means to make a comment with regard to how he’s proved himself, how he’s improved things; he says, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” M’s eyes glint as he fights not to squirm. The expression doesn’t change as she grows paler, subtly older, the M of legend temporarily bleeding away. “Bond? Or myself?”

Stupidly, the first question to enter Q’s head is “How do you know about Bond?” Clearly it doesn’t impress her, as she rolls her eyes in disbelief at the time being wasted (or that is the effect produced).

“I make it my business to learn what I can. We’re hardly islands down here – not all of us, at least.”

A little crazily, Q wonders whether M and Séverine are in league with each other. That would explain a lot. “A ghost network?” _Hermanubis_.

M refuses to dignify that with a direct response. “I’m well aware of your actions since your arrival. Your father always did concern me: too much of a blank page in your file.”

Q crosses his arms. “The feeling was mutual. What about Bond?”

“What about him?”

“If you know why I’m here, do you know where he is? I realise it’s supposed to be a ‘quest’,” the derision seeps through so easily, “but I don’t see why I should make him happy.”

M scoffs. “I suppose making him angry worked so well? There’s a reason neither of you are in Human Resources.”

“Because Bond would kill everyone?”

“He might have done a better job than you.” M shakes her head, no doubt at both of them. “Making him immortal, Christ, you make him look positively sensible. I wasn’t aware that was possible.”

“We can’t all be perfect,” Q mutters; adds a beat too late, “ma’am.”

“You especially. You brought him down here and you didn’t predict he’d be killed? What were you expecting?”

Stung, Q insists, “I was just doing what I thought he wanted.”

“It’s not up to you to do what your agent wants; just the opposite, in fact. You’re not supposed to indulge him. Give him enough and he’ll take it all. That’s what he’s been trained to do.”

“You never indulged him?” Q queries with disbelief, eyebrows raised. “You never made mistakes?”

“If my mistakes resulted in deaths, at least they meant something. You have a trail of bodies in your wake which makes me seriously question the wisdom of my own judgement.”

Q recoils, the chair skidding slightly. There’s a nasty edge to M’s expression, a merger of amusement and triumph following lines eroded over the years. She draws back, rising regally from her chair to stride to the window. Outside is grey light, with no features Q can see from here. He wonders if there are any; if she imagines anything. From here, the deep dark red draws the eye ever more strongly. If any of the dead can control their flickers on cue, she can.

Once again, he hears himself apologise.

“You’ll have to be more precise than that.”

“I’m sorry that Silva got away.” It’s not quite what he wants to say, just what he estimates he’s capable of saying. 

M doesn’t even look at him. “And that’s all, is it? No further confessions?”

Q sucks in a breath; forces it out. “I let Silva into our systems. I wanted to crack his files faster, so I used the mainframe rather than one we could quarantine. It’s exactly what he wanted…” He trails off with the word barely completed. Much quieter, eyes lowered, he amends, “It’s what he planned.”

When he looks back up again, M is watching him from her post. From what he can make out – not that he can’t see her crystal clear with these new eyes – she remains unimpressed.

“I suppose you want me to tell you that you made a mistake? That through your actions a terrorist was released on the streets of London, spread mass fear and panic, and eventually indirectly or otherwise succeeded in achieving his principal goal, namely my death? That you could have potentially caused MI6 to fall into upheaval with no clear leader and a tarnished reputation, a position our country’s enemies would no doubt have seized upon in a heartbeat? Are you seeking blame or redemption?”

She pauses there, giving the illusion that she expects a response. It’s a tactic everybody on MI6 quickly learnt was dangerous to fall victim to, for all that it’s so very hard when you’ve just been barraged by rhetorical questions not to try to say _something._

The exact questions, however, make Q stay silent. He has no idea what a correct response would even begin to sound like. Truth be told, it’s uncomfortably like being trapped in his own brain during his own fallout from Skyfall.

“Well, I suppose I can put you out of your misery on one point: yes. Yes, you do indeed carry sole responsibility for Silva’s escape as it transpired. If you hadn’t been so rash and reckless, his virus would have been contained, and all that followed would have fallen out very differently. Who knows? I might even have survived.”

Imagine that. A world where M doesn’t die; a world where MI6 doesn’t come this close to coming apart at the seams and Q doesn’t have to see Bond right after he returns from Scotland, before his agent vanished into the depths of London for days.

The weight’s always been there, hovering just out of metaphorical sight. 

“It’s entirely possible Silva manoeuvred you into your present position with that blast precisely because you could be so easily manipulated. I was questioned when it came to your appointment, placing such responsibility on such youthful shoulders, and it would seem that criticism carried some merit. You were easy to play, and that is precisely what we do not need in our line of work.”

Q feels his lips firm and fights the urge for anything more noticeable – to bite his lip, sigh, curl up away from it. 

“Is that what you want to hear? That it’s all your fault?”

He finds his voice – or at least a version of it, croaky and reluctant. “Isn’t it?”

“I’m not asking my opinion. You’re still Quartermaster; what is your assessment?”

 _I fucked up._ “I rushed into it, because I wanted to prove I was as good as I thought I was.”

“And?”

“And that’s all Silva needed. I was the weak link that let him out.”

M doesn’t confirm what he’s saying; she doesn’t need to. As he says the words, he can taste their truth. Despite the rumours of retirement beforehand, M is the one who should be in charge. Mallory was luck, for all that Q both likes and fears him. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees M return to her desk, seating herself where she belongs above. The brief, irrational thought comes: why not bring her back? Why not make up for it that way?

As if reading his thoughts, she asks, “Is this repentance?”

As abrupt as it is, suddenly it seizes him, burning through any other thoughts. “I guess. It’s not enough, though, I know.” Steeling himself, he looks up to meet her eyes, despite how terrifying the very concept of doing so may be. “What if I could make up for it somehow?”

“Are you saying you haven’t done anything since?”

Q shrugs, regretting the gesture instantly. “I’ve done my job, as far as I can make out. Assisted agents in the field, provided equipment; worked on modernising the department in the meantime. That’s what you told me was required,” he adds, hesitating slightly at the steel in her expression.

“That is what I said,” she confirms slowly. “Of course, I had thought you might need the reminder, given the most recent tenure under which you served.”

The thought of R at least rankles enough to surprise a defence out of him – the sort you might hear in any office, or even the bloody _Apprentice_. “During which I performed most of his duties anyway.”

“So I recall.”

She leaves the important part unsaid. He doesn’t like it that way. “Which is why you appointed me!”

“Is it? It would seem that wasn’t enough. What a poor decision I must have made. The actions of an old lady, no doubt.”

Q’s eyes narrow at the uncharacteristic description. M’s sarcasm was – is – capable of covering many things. The trick was guessing whether it was a trap – or, more often, what kind of trap. “You were nothing of the sort,” he says, because it’s true, and also because it was always best to ensure you didn’t accidentally sound like you were agreeing by slowness of response due to processing her gift for doublespeak. Rumours claim she wasn’t much of a shot, but you wouldn’t need to be, not with a tongue and a mind like that. “There was still so much you hadn’t done yet.”

“The same could be said of every corpse in the world.”

He winces, and the words escape him. “You don’t have to be one, though. I could – ”

“Before you continue,” she says sharply, interrupting him as much with a sudden and unexpectedly real flash of anger as her words, “think very carefully about what you are saying.”

“I’m saying I could – ”

“Q, having power is not a command to use it. If anything, it is the opposite. Have you been listening to anything I’ve said?”

“Yes, you’ve been saying that I made a mistake. I’m trying to fix it!”

“You’re trying to turn back the clock; to undo what has already been done. That is not the sign of leadership or responsibility. That is the sign of a child who hasn’t learnt to grow up!”

“Do you want me to do my job or not?”

“Yes! That is why you need to remember what your job is! We’ve all moved on since then. Acceptance of what we cannot control is part of what we do.”

“I can change it!”

“Which is why you need to recognise what should be changed. It’s not the past that matters at all, beyond what we can learn from it! Death walks among us enough as it is!”

Silly as it is, Q recoils from that. It might be a figure of speech; it feels far more personal. Although he can’t say when he started taking ‘death’ as an term of address. “You don’t want to be alive?” he asks, and if he meant it as a demand, it emerges far quieter, younger even.

M sighs. “Regardless of how we assign blame, my time has passed. My opinion as to its length no longer matters.”

That makes sense. A horrible, awful sense. Responding seems fairly redundant, so instead Q sits there absorbing it. M says nothing to fill the silence: if anything, she seems pleased to watch him turning it over, arms and legs crossed and one foot tracing meditative circles in the air.

Finally, gaze fixed on his arcane inscriptions (although he shouldn’t joke, he might actually be capable of those), he asks quietly, “Do you think I should leave 007 down here as well?”

“I was under the impression you thought of it as an either/or.”

His eyes flash up again, no hesitation this time, and it’s his turn to be angry. “That’s not what I asked. Do me the courtesy of not treating me like a child.”

She smiles, amused, but it’s far less patronising (he’ll accept a little as inevitable). If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she looks approving. “All I can say is that I recommend you do not deviate from your original plan so readily. Why come for Bond if you abandon the path so early on?”

Imagining all that’s occurred so far as merely ‘early on’ honestly hurts a little. “I haven’t really stopped to think about it much,” he says slowly. “007’s death is my fault…except he would have died long beforehand if not for me.”

“Isn’t it remarkable how things aren’t always black and white? I imagine it’s quite a novelty.”

Her mockery still bites at him. However, he feels like he’s teetering at the edge of some sort of revelation, deep enough in his rapidly ticking over thought processes for the barb not to cut at him so deeply. “I’m his Quartermaster. It’s my job to look after him.”

“I think we can fairly say you’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty now.” She’s right, of course. Q’s just not sure what else to call it.

Out of nowhere, he recalls Eve’s surprised face; his own comment to Bond – both in environments so achingly familiar as to seem a dream now. “Bond broke into your home. Several times, if I recall the reports.”

To her credit, M shows no reaction to the abrupt change in subjects. “Personal space and privacy were neither of them concepts he was familiar with.”

Past tense again. It pushes him on further. “Was that something he was in the habit of? Or am I the lucky recipient after your death?”

That’s real amusement there, he’s certain of it. To be honest, there are some uncanny resemblances to Eve when she looks like that, enough to make him blink in unnerved surprise and feel a vague chill of premonition. (The shiver has an oddly novel feel to it.) “I hadn’t realised,” she tells him, which for all it sounds unlikely could very well be true. After all, she might know everything down here, but Q hesitates to assume that the dead know everything about what occurs amongst the living. It raises the sort of metaphysical questions he remains extremely reluctant to consider now, or indeed ever. “Congratulations.”

“Why? Is being woken in the middle of the night by a stalker with a licence to kill something to be happy about?”

With the air of someone passing on a great wisdom, M informs him, “Prior to my death, the only home Bond ever invaded was my own – regardless of my address or either of our current circumstances. I daresay you will find that now you are the only recipient of his own presumptuous brand of what those of us with experience with domestic pets might label ‘affection’.”

Q laughs, “Did you just call 007 a cat?” since that’s nice and easy to say and doesn’t involve releasing his internal scream into the outside world.

He does know that behaviour. It might take some coaxing and it might take weeks or months or no time at all, but once a cat feels at home, it will show up whether you want it or not.

And home might be a territory, but the amenities – food, for example, a scratch behind the ears, or an alternative source of alcohol – those come with a person firmly attached.

Watching his expression – presumably a perfect picture of someone hit soundly on the head by the bloody obvious – M apparently finds it necessary to make it even worse. “I hear you’ve begged this favour based on precedent. I was unaware there were tales of your sort of quest without something rather larger and more intimate than ‘duty’ involved.”

Q attempts to cling to the idea of M of all people implying duty to be an inferior motivator – even though of course that’s not what she means, he can’t even lie about that, this is why he’s never going to be out in the field and that’s a very very good thing. It’s the only thing that might keep him afloat in all of this.

There’s a phrase he’s always thought he understood, one of which his mother seems particularly fond: _You can’t see the wood for the trees_. Throughout his life it keeps coming up, because allegedly Q has some sort of tendency to focus in on little things as if they’re all that matter. (He still contends that they’re certainly fairly high up in terms of importance, regardless of the actual point being made.)

Now, though, a whole new understanding dawns upon him. 

Philosophically – the way you can only get when the enormity of it all means your mind separates, observes itself in the habitat of its own obliviousness – he thinks that the problem with life is that it’s one big wood where you’re constantly crushed up against the trunks. (This is not something he feels should be said aloud, since even dazed and confused he can scent the inane a mile off.)

_Because you might have a genius level IQ, but that has never stopped anyone from being an idiot. Just the opposite, in fact._

More practically, he realises he is having this revelation in front of M of all people, and has this strange moment where he’s not sure if he’s more mortified by thinking about how his relationship with Bond went flying past ‘professional’ months ago in front of their former boss or Bond’s pseudo-mother.

“Please,” she says, lifting a hand when he opens his mouth, “I have no wish to hear it whatsoever.”

That’s good. He has no wish to share.

“Now, I suggest you decide whether you are going to follow through with this, now that you know it is not simply a matter of responsibility. You are stumbling in realms which I think we can agree you still don’t fully comprehend. In fact, from not just what I’ve just witnessed – ” the schoolboy feeling is back in full force “ – but from what I’ve heard as well, you don’t yet fully comprehend yourself.”

“Is there something about being dead that makes you cryptic?”

“No. That would the business of espionage.” She picks up a dossier from the desk in front of her, one which Q would swear wasn’t there a moment ago and which can’t possibly contain anything. Briefly raising her eyes once more, she says, “I’m sure you can find the way out.” Perhaps it’s just the despair in Q that makes him hope there’s a double meaning therein.

He stands awkwardly, suddenly unsure of how long he’s been sat there. Time seems looser, somehow, and more so all the time, down here. Feeling oddly brave, or at least reckless, he says, “Was that mostly forgiveness or blame, in the end?”

Not looking up again, M announces, “I blame you for making a stupid mistake when you knew better. I forgive you for being as manipulated as the rest of us. Is that enough?”

Not entirely. Nevertheless, it’s more than he ever thought he’d get.

Dismissed, he walks back to the door, grand and oaken and familiar as ever. Only when he rests his hand on the doorknob does he realise what would be a far more useful question. “Maybe I’ve thought otherwise, but really, I’ve only been wandering aimlessly at the moment. Where do you think I should be looking?”

Looking back, he gets to match M’s sigh with the exasperated toss of the dossier back on the desk, for all the world as if she has a thousand meetings to get through today and no time whatsoever for her staff’s personal problems. Still, she does him the decency of considering the question.

“Bond is nothing if not sentimental when you least expect it. I recommend talking to the woman he loved.”

“What, his wife?” Q struggles to remember the name – Terry? Tracy? – recalling only his mild surprise at the time at the dusty fact hidden somewhere in the depths of Bond’s file.

“No,” M says, not sharply but certainly firmly, “I said the woman he loved.”

And he knows precisely who she means.

\---------

Finding M proves something: there is a knack to uncovering the people you want to see. Granted, Séverine appears as she wants, and other ghosts linger wherever they wish, yet when he wanted guidance, he found Boothroyd, and M followed in her own way. 

Outside M’s office, he finds himself in a different location again, down by a river wide enough to belong in the large scales of America or Africa. This time, he’s not surprised to discover the difference. Briefly he contemplates refilling his bottle, until he thinks of Lethe and decides not to make it that easy.

Analysing the past, he concludes it was technically easy, once he knew how. This next visit is less so, but getting the underworld to move the way he wants it, when he does so consciously, feels easier this time. It’s the kind of thing he’d really like to ignore, whilst his subconscious chews it over and over.

He’d met M, even if he can’t say that he ‘knew’ her, seeing as almost nobody did. More to the point, he had a recent trail to follow, and Boothroyd to point the way. This time he’s only going on old files and rumour, suppositions and whispers and a thousand CLASSIFIEDs.

That and a certain bitter aftertaste.

He thinks about wandering, and trusting to blind luck. He thinks about how long that could take. He thinks about how he’s already so fucking sick of it. 

He thinks about cursing his lighter and complaining, with the kind of entitlement he normally loathes as representative of pretty much everything he hates, that if this is his heritage, then there should be perks.

An image, and a need for an audience. All he needs is a hook. Truth be told, as much as he racks his brain for something more appropriate, only one springs to mind.

This time he’s more deliberate about it. He closes his eyes and builds up the guilty memory in his mind.

He can still hear Eve’s laugh – the sort of laugh that instantly gives away that you shouldn’t be doing this. The equal measures of guilt and curiosity and morbidity, sure as the swirling mix of Gordon’s, vodka and Kina Lillet, with a single slice of lemon.

_“Aren’t you the slightest bit curious what a lost love tastes like?”_

Nothing like a secret to pave the way.

(The longing, the aching loneliness, the yearning: he lets them all pass by.)

Only when he feels in control, sure and confident of what he will see, does he open his eyes again.

It doesn’t matter that he’s never seen this particular casino. Everything in his sight still seems instantly familiar and absolutely right, as if it could be no other way. Ask and ye shall receive.

Normally he feels nothing but out of place in these sorts of environments. Obviously, what with the fear of flying, he’s never visited Vegas or even Monte Carlo, but suits make him uncomfortable and Bond frequents enough clubs to reveal that they bring Q out in hives. With his head for numbers, you’d think gambling would appeal; however, it also requires a poker face. Q only has one when people can’t see him, which rather defeats the point.

This time, though, he moves smoothly past the ghosts all around, seated at tables with cards in hand. The shirt helps, he guesses: that touch of elegance which made him so uncomfortable before. Now, he can barely imagine wearing anything else. A few unexpected strands of laughter drift from far away, and his head snaps towards the sound in surprise. It just sounds so alien down here, with or without a visible source. For a moment he lets himself get distracted by the question of who all these ghosts are, whether he summoned them or in a way they were always here, always in a shadowy casino painted in shades of grey just waiting to be stumbled upon. Somehow he doubts that the Underworld is nothing but endless grey landscaping, although that could be wishful thinking. It’s certainly the most vivid location since Thanatos’ mansion, and the memory snaps Q back to attention.

He sees her at once, of course, exactly where he pictured her: the stool at the bar, her back turned, her arm draped over the back of the chair, her dress falling in elegant waves to the ground. The barman, again smiling more broadly than Q is accustomed, seems enchanted by her. Despite his resolution in coming here, he has to take a steadying breath. He reminds himself that from what he can tell of the whispers and the files, this woman could have been Eve in another life, and as such he just has to stand his ground. If nothing else, he has to.

Awkward at the last minute, he clears his throat behind her. “Ms Lynd?”

After a pause, she slowly turns to look at him. Regardless of his own preferences, Q has to admit that she’s beautiful, the kind she created for herself, favourable features emphasised and weaponised by dark eyeshadow and darker lipstick. Her eyeliner’s practically warpaint. Around her neck rests a necklace joined by a knot – which one, Q has no idea, lacking both sailing experience and Wikipedia – which stands ever-so-slightly at odds with the rest of her. 

He smiles nervously. “I think ‘your reputation precedes you’ would be something of an understatement.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel important? Worthy of attention? The faceless woman who broke 007’s stone-cold heart, it’s how all of us want to be remembered, isn’t it?”

Q misjudged. This woman isn’t Eve wrapped up in an enigma, she’s sharp edges and hostility and perhaps closer to Séverine when it comes to hidden claws. Q recalls his disbelief on being told the love of James Bond’s life was an accountant (albeit much the same way that Q could be described as the IT guy). Now faced with reality, things are making much more sense.

Caught off-guard, he doesn’t manage to stop his response. “We don’t always get to decide how we’re remembered.”

He earns a slight twist of a smile, even if it doesn’t reach her eyes. “You’re a little young to understand what that means.”

“I think I understand enough.”

“Of course you do. James hardly has a monopoly on arrogance.”

Two things strike him: first, the utterly surreal ring that Bond’s first name carries on its own, and second, that Vesper is the first person – entity, he supposes – down here to refer to Bond in anything but past tense.

“You stuck me in a casino just so you could talk to me. You don’t care about who I was on my own; you care about who I was to him. Do you really think a member of the Treasury would seek out these places in life, let alone death, or are you trying not to think about how even after I made the only choice left to me, you’ve managed to find one more way to use me?”

As if on cue, she changes, as he always knew she would. He tries to watch dispassionately, reminding himself that he’s seen far worse deaths, even on the train. All the same, remembering her file, when her skin pales and water settles and her dress slips from sophisticated eveningwear to soaked vivid red and her hair clumps as the air takes away the serenity of underwater, it’s all he can do not to look away.

Honestly, Q doesn’t know what to say. At all. Snappy, vaguely antagonistic interactions can gravitate towards him, meaning he’s hardly unfamiliar with the idea of things being less than pleasant, yet this is something else altogether. Especially because she’s right. He sinks onto the stool next to her, still trying to think of what to say, all the while watched by those literally dead eyes.

Around them, the casino blurs at the edges, the floor now vanishing into grey. The table still dominates the room, though. Idly, Q wonders what it was like in MI6 back then, not sure what the hell Bond was up to, save for the occasional check-in of ‘I don’t suppose anybody fancies telling me how to deal with poisoning’. Truth be told, Q can’t imagine deliberately cutting one of his agents free like that. Bond has to actively choose to vanish for days on end (half the time Q locates him anyway, just to make sure he’s alright).

Time lost all meaning a while ago. Therefore he has no idea how long it is before Vesper straightens up – when he looks back she’s returned to her casino attire, still not her but not drowned either – and announces, “Now, ask me where James is.”

Does every ghost down here know about him? Apparently the disbelief shows on his face, because she smiles savagely and informs him, “I’m not the only one whose reputation precedes them.”

“Nothing bad, I hope?”

“You made James immortal, then got him killed, then made a deal you stand little chance of winning, thus very well dooming both of you, all done entirely on impulse. I’ll let you evaluate.” She crosses her legs around the dress, in the exaggerated manner of someone more accustomed to trousers, and waits.

“I’ve been trying not to.”

“It shows. Daddy proved a disappointment and now here you are, chasing your tail and asking anyone and everyone you run into for help. Rather a disappointment, for a demigod.”

She states it so matter-of-factly, so haughtily, so much as though Q is barely worthy to be in the same Underworld as her, that the word takes a moment to register. When it does, it’s accompanied by the strangest ringing noise in his ears, as if his mind has decided that if it’s going to be subjected to such ridiculous things, it’s just going to shut down.

‘Demigods’ mean Heracles and Perseus and Achilles; they means grand deeds and tragic lives and epic stories. Not once has ‘demigod’ ever referred to someone whose clothes are ingrained with ubiquitous cat hair and whose hair defies all manner of combs and who has a tendency to try to hide inside computers when startled.

To be fair, that’s why she called him a disappointment.

Beneath his disbelief, a flame of arrogance kindles. “I’m so sorry to have _disappointed_ you. I’m sure you had all sorts of expectations of me.”

“You have no idea,” she drawls, leaning languorously against the bar. “All those powers you’ve indulged in, I’m sure you have no idea how to use them.”

“I found you.”

“Yes,” she agrees, giving the casino a dismissive once-over, “truly the work of a master.” Sarcasm evidently comes easily to her. “Now picture us somewhere else,” she challenges.

“Where?”

Smiling, Vesper whispers, “Close your eyes.”

Feeling more than a little foolish but also accepting that that’s been a fairly permanent feature lately, Q obeys. Actually, it’s rather nice – normal, even. If you can’t see an Underworld casino (by a slightly different definition) populated by ghosts including one you’ve previously only known through notorious mission reports and who seems to have taken an instant dislike to you, maybe you can pretend none of it exists.

So naturally Q breaks the illusion himself. “Where am I supposed to be seeing us?”

“Anywhere. Anywhere you can imagine me.” Presumably Q doesn’t have to imagine himself. He really hopes that’s the case.

“I’ve never been to Venice.”

“Good. I have no plans to return.”

He sighs, racking his brains for a location. It’s uncannily similar to being asked to name his favourite book: every option in the history of mankind flies straight out of his head. In fact, he finds that his mind only considers what his favourite book might be, scrolling through an inner Kindle library rather than focusing on the task at hand. Things like this are precisely why he isn’t a field agent. You ask him to reshape reality, and he starts remembering lending _Lord of the Rings_ to Bond –

It takes so little effort. Before the thought finishes, the ground is moving under him, shaking him from side to side subtly yet irksomely, the rhythm similar to that Q’s grown up with. From outside comes the sound of wheels on tracks, and inside his seat gains a back, a padded cushion, and an aisle.

Q blinks his eyes open. Vesper looks unimpressed to have remained in an evening gown, but she already looks far more at home on a cross-country first class train to nowhere.

“That was harder last time,” he admits.

“I’m sure. How do you feel?”

Q blinks with surprise at what sounds an awful lot like concern. Then he realises how closely she’s studying him. “I’m not sure. I thought I was awaiting your verdict on whether I measure up.”

She purses perfectly painted lips in consideration. “You’ll do.”

“For what?”

Significant silences have officially lost their sheen for Q. He longs for straight answers, knowing full well as he does so that he works in espionage and he didn’t even get them in the land of the living. Normally he get to go hide in his own binary world for a bit.

Determined not to rise to whatever challenge it is this time, Q stares pointedly out of the window. Outside the Underworld tries to offer some scenery. The scenery is far more in keeping with his original intention to place Vesper in that train en route to Monaco, or anywhere else exotic. The train itself betrays the fact that when Q did Interrail, First Class was precisely where he did not spend his time, and hence he’s had to fall back on something more home-grown.

“Have you thought about why you’re doing this?”

“That’s all anyone asks about. Whether Bond’s worth it, all of that.”

“It’s a conundrum, isn’t it?” Vesper’s reflection is decidedly unrepentant about criticising someone she died for, even as the inevitable waterlogged features swim to the surface. “But it’s not what I meant. If you’re doing this for him, then you can decide whether James is the sort of man you should be overturning the natural order for.”

Q refuses to look over. “‘If’?” he echoes. “Why else would I put myself through this?”

“To prove a point?” Vesper sighs. “You might have realised your mistake already,” Q tenses, “but you won’t admit it. This could be to prove your father wrong, in the end.”

Q doesn’t deny it. His reaction to her previous sentence would negate any defence he could muster, and they’d both know he was lying. “You think he’s right?” he asks in resignation.

“I think I don’t have much patience for this sort of power-posturing.” She purses her lips again, then amends, “In fact I have no patience for it. I had enough of it in my life, I don’t need to waste time with it when I’m dead.” She waves off Q’s apology irritably, not even the first syllable making it through. “Do it for James, if you must do it at all. Do it for yourself as well, if it makes you feel better, but don’t turn this into another small boy crying for attention. We’ve established you have the powers you need if you want to show off to your heart’s content.”

“Which is not to do so at all.”

“What a relief. So ask yourself if it’s all worth it and, if it’s not, take it up with Daddy.”

Q considers the proposition. He considers the very idea of abandoning Bond and it turns his stomach. “I can’t leave him.”

“Guilt?”

“No,” he replies, indignant. He feels guilty, of course he does, but that doesn’t make it his motivation any more than squaring up to his father over some petty point. “I’m not leaving him down here.”

“You keep telling me that, yet you give very little explanation as to why.”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you, Ms Lynd,” Q coldly informs her. “I came looking for you because I thought you might help me find Bond. It seems I was mistaken.”

She lets him get as far as standing up before she points out, “You seem very attached, for a work colleague.”

“It’s not the sort of work where you have any other attachments.”

“I realised. That was why he resigned for me.” When he spins around, furious, she gestures towards the seat opposite. He refuses. “You let him get close, knowing the risks. Perhaps you opened up yourself. You won’t find him unless you accept why you want to, and he won’t let you find him either. 

“You’ve been wandering around for a while now. Are you really waiting for him to make it easy? You can’t order him about the way you clearly think you can when it comes to me. He’ll dig his heels in on principle and you’ll just have to go home empty-handed. You have to meet him halfway.

“Those sorts of things are necessary, if you’re going to love someone.”

She says it so matter-of-factly, despite a subject matter that comes so entirely out of left-field, that Q is already nodding in the vague polite automatic agreement of the English when the meaning suddenly blindsides him, metaphorically hard enough to see stars. 

As with Eve (Christ, he misses her, she could explain this bloody mess), he opens his mouth to stutter a denial, an explanation which somehow proves her assumption to be totally groundless and illogical; unlike those conversations which seem so long ago and far away now, no sound actually emerges. Under her intense gaze – not even attempting to disguise itself as amusement, calculating and piercing and deeply uncomfortable as a result – all but the most basic protests die away.

“We’re not together,” he croaks, wincing in regret even as he says it. He hardly needs the dismissive twist to Vesper’s features to tell him that he sounds like a bloody child.

To her credit, she does not proceed to rend him to pieces. Thank Heaven for small mercies, he supposes. “I never said that you were. And if it’s any comfort, the two of you are well-matched in the area of self-delusion.”

Now Q does manage to find words, albeit not in his own defence. He gave up on that a while ago. “If you were in love with him, you’ve got a funny way of showing it, Miss Lynd.”

“You disagree?”

“I’m not sure you have the right to write him off like that.”

She smiles. “I’ve got you riled now, haven’t I? Loving someone doesn’t mean you never criticise them.”

His flare of anger makes him blunt. “There’s criticism and there’s being wrong.”

“He never realised what I was doing – not until it was too late. He never realised there might be someone else; that I might have my own agenda, deliberate or otherwise. The idea that I might betray him never crossed his mind.”

“He trusted you.” Q snorts. “If you call that self-deception, don’t worry: you broke him of that.”

“Not from what I heard.”

Something’s nagging at the back of Q’s mind. He can’t see it clearly though, because easily smashing its way in front of it is the simple tired itchy anger of someone who has had the longest day of their life. “What is it, exactly, about being dead that makes everybody so bloody cryptic all the time? Is it that you have nothing better to do than – ”

Unfortunately for Vesper, she’ll never hear the end of that sentence. The trailing end dies away as the more rational part of his mind rears its head and screams to be heard. And that’s precisely the point.

“Heard from whom?”

Vesper’s perfectly-painted lips – perfect even as the skin around them temporarily flashes pale and waterlogged – stretch into a smile worthy of any cat he’s ever met.

“Bond was here?”

“You just missed him.”

Fuck. 

_Fuck._

The bloody _bastard_ \- 

“Is he actively avoiding me?”

“I did say you’d have to meet him halfway.”

“That suggests he’ll actually meet me.” The revelation’s knocked him for six, or whatever the phrase is. Throughout all of this – making the deal and pissing off his father and wandering the labyrinth and confronting Skyfall and finding Vesper and all of the rest of it – through all that, it never occurred to him that Bond might not want to be found. Who’s more at fault here, he’s not sure. “Fuck, why am I even doing this?”

“You tell me.”

Q sighs helplessly; rubs his hands against the back of his head for the want of doing anything with them. He’s tired, just so tired of this. His stomach gives an odd, muted twinge, and he idly wonders how long he’s actually been down here. Didn’t Séverine say something about the ticking clock? Did he just think of that himself? Either way, maybe that’s why he’s so cranky: the water’s running low as well. Even as he thinks it, he knows it’s wishful thinking, wanting to blame everything on something concrete, something that feels _real._

He sighs, reluctantly meeting her eyes. “For the same reason you died?”

She ignores the reference. “That makes it sound as if you’re not certain.”

“Because sometimes there’s someone you have to fight for; because he’s too bloody pig-headed to save himself.”

“Are you satisfied with that?”

He blinks, and she changes, into something new this time. As if it had always been the case, she sits there regarding him with cool amusement, arms crossed in a dark blazer, legs encased in an impeccable trouser suit. For the first time, she looks at home, in control. Maybe he did that. Maybe she did it herself.

Regardless, he considers her question, and the answer is obvious. “No.”

“Good.” She nods. “Getting what he wants isn’t at all good for him. You should have seen his ego when we met the first time.”

“It’s a fairly impressive ego now.”

“Not a patch on the old model, I assure you. It’s strange,” Vesper goes on, features subtly altering until she almost looks wistful, “meeting someone after that long apart. It’s like meeting a stranger.”

It’s an unbelievably personal, private moment. Q shifts uncomfortably, wishing he were anywhere else, yet not quite at the teleportation stage, apparently. He blurts out, “What does the necklace mean?”

Instantly that vulnerable expression vanishes. “James recognised it.”

“I’ve never been in the navy.” A keepsake? He wasn’t aware Bond was into that sort of thing – not with the ones that mattered.

Her fingers trace the circle, hesitating. “A Gordion love knot. He didn’t give it to me.” Those circles still. “People don’t just love one person for their entire lives. That’s ridiculous; a fairytale. Life doesn’t work that way.”

It takes a moment for Q to figure out what’s bothering him: the train is slowing down. A glance out of the window reveals only grey, but really, what was he expecting? “I think this is my stop.”

Vesper doesn’t offer a reply, only extending her hand over the table between them. Q hesitates before shaking it. “Thank you.” He’s not sure what for. 

Grabbing the water bottle from the table, he makes his way down the carriage, reaching the door as the train glides gently to a stop with a high whine from the brakes. The door opens of its own accord, because of course it does. All he can do is step down onto the platform.

He experiences a moment of vertigo. The platform is not strictly a platform as he knows it, far thinner and absent of any seats or connections: just a flat stretch of planks to the side of the track, and the far side is where the vertigo comes from.

Only when he emerges into the open does Q realise that the grey emptiness outside the window wasn’t just void, for a change. Just three steps away the platform simply stops, replaced by a plunge down to a surging river far, far below. He’s standing on a railway bridge, of the standard seen in Westerns just before a train plummets to its doom, all zigzagged planks and little else holding it together. As he takes this in, behind him the train pulls away again – something far more old-fashioned than the Tube, the interior was Cross-Country but the outside is proud Victoriana – abandoning him out here.

He turns again just in time to see the word emblazoned in muted gold on its side: STYX.

Q breathes out, and that breath might sound like, “Naturally.”

He thinks about the familiarity of Boothroyd, safe and grounding and dispensing the same cryptic advice disguised as senility as ever; he thinks about how M wouldn’t offer him forgiveness, lest he forget the lessons, lest he forget that power means a greater capacity to make mistakes; he thinks about Séverine, scared of something she would never discuss, and Vesper, guarding Bond and at the same time wanting someone to find him to put an end to this ridiculous game of theirs.

Without the train, the sound of the river rushes into his ears. No dramatic waterfall, yet it surges nonetheless, wide enough that Q can barely make out the edges of either it or the bridge which crosses it. (‘Bridge to Nowhere’, where’s that supposed to be?) The moment he thinks that there should be a waterfall, he realises what’s he’s remembering – or rather, what he’s recalling from the archives, because at the time Q had been down in Q Branch in an unofficial conference to discuss how the hell their budget was supposed to account for R, and hence only heard about 007’s supposed death much later.

An inevitability hangs in the air. Perhaps he’s been down here too long if he sees it as such; perhaps he finally understands.

Q considers the bottle of water in his hand. To be honest, he’s not entirely sure where it all went. In the same way, he couldn’t say how long he’s been down here; how long he’s been seeing nothing but grey in every direction.

He thinks he’s approaching an end, though, whatever that might mean.

He finishes the bottle.

Q’s not sure where exactly Bond is. But now, feeling oddly stronger than before – more than a little light-headed on the rush, to tell the truth – he knows how to find him.

_Are you really waiting for him to make it easy?_

No. Because this is James Bond, and if you want to find him, the last thing you want to do is stick to the easy option.

It’s possible that, right now, he could just summon Bond; click his fingers and have the agent right there, no muss no fuss, and so on. He could do that, he feels certain of that: but Bond would never come with him. 

Q has to meet him halfway.

The bottle hits the ground by his feet. No need for it anymore. No need for anything except himself.

“Alright then,” Q mutters to himself, staring down into the grey river pounding far away beneath him. “Symbolism it is.”

So saying, he lets go, and lets himself fall into the river Styx.

\----------

Imagine drowning.

Imagine nothing but water all around, the light already fading away in the distance like a memory. When you’ve gone swimming in pools or even at the beach, the water might have seemed ominous, yet below all was calm and silence. Here, though, the water fights you as an intruder. It pulls at you and you let it, no point in fighting when you don’t know where to fight your way to. The current yanks and drags you along, tearing, pounding, beating you into something which belongs down here.

Q tenses and the river doesn’t care; he relaxes and it only takes it as its due. The first thing it does is take his breath away. Up and down lose all meaning, as all that matters is the direction the river wants to take him. Opening his eyes, the part of him not concerned with the water filling his mouth or the hell he’s carved out for himself thinks that at least the darkness with its sparks of light makes for a change. 

Later, he thinks that those sparks of light weren’t underwater. They came from him.

He twists and turns, sometimes certain he’s so close to being scraped along the bottom, other times suddenly so sure that it would take so little effort to break the surface and suck in precious oxygen. He might be right or wrong, either way it doesn’t matter, because the river takes him wherever it wants. When bones scrape by or ghostly faces – even less solid than all those before, screaming wraiths who look like watercolour paintings and pencil sketches and might be nothing more than imagination – when all the horrors of the Styx seek out their new companion, all he can do is let himself be carried onwards.

At some point, he stops breathing.

\----------

He washes up on the shore, lost and disoriented and feeling oddly cleansed. The moment he leaves the water, his clothes are bone-dry once more. Just as well, really: there’s no sun here to lend a hand. 

Rubbing a hand over his face, he finds that he’s not surprised to be alive. Probably because he’s not entirely sure what that means anymore.

When he moves his hand away, he finds he’s not alone. 

Q sighs as he looks up, eyebrow raised. “You’re not an easy man to find, 007.”

Bond smiles. “Well, I wouldn’t want to make anything too easy for you, Q.”

He looks the same, _exactly_ the same, right down to the suit he’d been wearing the last time Q saw him. It’s like the eternity down here, searching everywhere for him, never even happened.

Except that there is one thing. In the entire time he’s known him, Q would never once have described Bond as ‘colourless’. Be it the material of his suits, the flash of his tie and ridiculous watches, the splatter of blood, the deep purple of bruises, or simply the vivid blue of those eyes, something about Bond has always stood out for him. Splashes of colour in the monochrome of espionage.

The Bond he’s found is a Bond who is dead. Seeing those brilliant eyes in greyscale hits Q like a knife to the gut.

Standing up, brushing himself down despite there being nothing to brush off, he accuses – no, states, he isn’t going to start anything that way – he _states_ , like the Quartermaster should, “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I’d hardly put it that way.”

“That’s because you hate it when somebody points out just how petty you’re being. Nobody’s suave and sophisticated all the time, I’m afraid.”

“Or at all, in your case.”

Q hides his wince. He predicted some fairly petty jabs, and Bond does not disappoint. Instead he asks – the words emerging far more acerbically than intended – “Enjoying death?” Resentment always finds a way to leak out.

“Well, you know how it is,” Bond starts, smiling without the joke reaching any further, “renewing old acquaintances, catching up on old times. Getting a chance to finish that last round of poker.”

“Sounds like a blast.” Q will have to try very hard indeed in the future to achieve that level of sarcasm again. “I’m so sorry to distract you.”

“Apology accepted.” 

Q glares back into that insufferable grin. “I just hunted you down across the Underworld, 007. The least you could do is – ” He stops when, abruptly, Bond’s attention sharpens to its full familiar razor intensity. What it is he’s spotted, Q has no idea – he’s not aware of any new scars or giveaways, anything that might attract a secret agent’s attention, but then that’s precisely the point – he just freezes in place as, slowly, Bond leans in close.

Carefully, as if not entirely sure he should be doing it, Bond reaches out, cups Q’s face in his hand. Instinctively Q flinches, expecting the same awful illusion-shattering cold of Boothroyd’s touch, before letting himself relax in confusion. Bond’s skin certainly isn’t warm, but it’s not cold either. It just feels comfortable – the same temperature as him.

“Are you sure you’re dead?” he murmurs, smiling a little because the contact really does feel very nice, especially after so long. Unfortunately, Bond does not return the expression. In fact, if it was anybody else, Q might call that ‘concerned’.

“Are you sure you’re not?”

Séverine’s warning echoes suddenly in his ears, making his muscles tense and his mind race with panic. _Spend too long down here, he might not let you go again._ He closes his eyes and forces himself to focus, soothing thoughts intended to calm the worry with logic. “I haven’t eaten anything,” he says, “or drunk anything. I haven’t done anything to hurt myself. He doesn’t have any hold on me.”

“You’re not breathing.”

His eyes snap open to find Bond holding something close to his face. A beat later, he recognises the Walther.

The barrel hovers side-on, extremely close to his mouth, and he thinks how glad he is not to be facing it dead-on. Then he registers what Bond wanted to show him.

The barrel of the Walther is smooth, gleaming metal. There isn’t a single mark or blemish on it to break the surface sheen – including the telltale fogging caused by human breath.

Q remembers the river all around him; remembers deliberately letting himself be carried away, letting go of everything. There are a few things he forgot along the way.

New clothes; new powers; no breath.

He couldn’t feel less like himself if he tried.

“You idiot,” he hears Bond say. Rather than resigned, which is what Q might have expected, or the simple observation of just before, he sounds…angry? Q even fancies there might be a tremor of something else there as well, although it’s entirely possible he’s just projecting his own fear. “Did you ever think about yourself?”

The single laugh – incredulous, too surprised to be anything else – tears itself out of him, loud and echoing in the nothingness around them. “Could you repeat that? Because I was under the impression that we’ve both just spent rather a lot of time indeed thinking about _you_ – what you want, what you don’t want. It’s all about you, isn’t it? I mean,” and the memory still hurts a little, bitterness impossible to hold back even if he wanted to try, “you decided to kiss me right there, for no reason other than you _knew_ you were going to die, and there just wasn’t enough time for a final fuck, was there?” And then something which must have been scratching at the back of his mind all along, something which fought harder to be known when Vesper warned that Bond wasn’t going to come quietly, that something finally crawls out into the open and Q’s shoulders collapse as he fully sees what was always there. “You planned the whole thing. You were never planning on coming back.”

Bond doesn’t confirm any of it. He doesn’t have to. His silence, as the saying goes, speaks volumes.

“Fuck,” Q says in disbelief. “Fuck,” he says again, and it’ll never feel enough. “I’ve almost literally been through Hell to find you, and I never realised this is exactly where you meant to be.”

Revelations continue to beat at him, and Q has really had enough of them. A little wistfully, he remembers all the way back in Q Branch, deciding what they were going to order in for dinner, before everything turned upside down. He wonders if Bond actually wanted to die like that, alone in a tower in Singapore.

There’s that one question again they keep coming back to, again and again. Finally, exhausted and exasperated, he decides just to try the same old route: “Why is it so important to you that you die?” 

Instantly Bond’s entire face shuts down. From a position of absolute detachment – one which, even after riding a train with the dead (twice) and being dragged through the Styx, he still finds running on a separate (now slightly dusty) track in his mind, analytical and at the right distance to point an agent wherever they need to go – Q can’t help but admire the change. It’s as abrupt as it is absolute: the face that says that no matter what you do, 007 won’t talk.

Q wouldn’t mind so much, except it means Bond pulls his hand away as well, and Q barely manages to stop himself leaning after it. So he uses what he will freely admit is an underhanded trick, and says, “James.”

It’s truly bizarre how alien a name can sound on your tongue. It can’t be that it’s too short, or too normal, since both are accusations (if you can call it that) which can be levelled at his surname as well. It can’t be that it doesn’t sound like a real name, because Q called this man by a number for almost six months. In the end, it’s just that it sounds wrong. It’s too unfamiliar to match with a face, even a concept, which is so far from a stranger to him.

Bond – _James,_ Q thinks firmly, thrown off-kilter by the revelation, _James James James_ – looks more than a little stunned himself. Q wonders just how many people have ever called him that. Q wonders how many of them are down here now.

“James,” he repeats, “why do you have to be dead?”

Q really, really hopes that nobody ever gets wind of just how much James gets thrown off by hearing people call him that. Then again, he realises as he recalls the recorded interactions with Silva, for the most part people do use it as something significant (or, recalling every other mission, as shorthand for sex), and Q feels like a statistic.

Except Bond shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and actually answers the question. For the most part. “It’s more being able to die.” Frankly, Q will take what he can get. Even if what he gets sounds so utterly stupid.

“James,” he says, smile and half-laugh both faked for mutual benefit, “I know I’ve joked about suicidal tendencies, but this is ridiculous.” Bond’s face does not alter, which makes Q’s illusion slip away. His poker face really is appalling. “I thought you had – what’s the phrase – ‘a new lease on life’?”

Bond’s eyes narrow, but Q doesn’t care. It is entirely possible that he’s already dead over all this; the least he deserves is a straight answer.

“I was willing to make do.”

“‘Make do.’” Q carefully pronounces each word, pausing in between, loading both with derision and disbelief. “I think you’re flattering me, James. I’m afraid I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.” He tried, he really did, yet as with all things there’s only so much Q can take. The anger seeps through now, hardening his words, with the threat of worse to come. Thanatos vanished into a wave of bone-ripping darkness; Q wonders what he himself could do if provoked. Make no mistake about it, at this rate he’s find out rather soon.

Bond starts to argue, “I don’t have to justify myself – ”

“Yes,” Q interrupts, appearing calm and all the more angry for it, “you do. I am your superior, I am your Quartermaster, I am the son of the supposed ruler in your chosen new home, and you have no idea what I’ve been through to find you, so I think I merit a little more than just that you were ‘making do’.” He tilts his head, narrowing his eyes as he bites out every word. Q generally doesn’t make the threats in person; they have people for that. If he must, he types them out, the separation making it easier to come up with something impressive than he tends to say in person. Now, though, his focus intensifies, and all that matters is finding out what the _fuck_ has been happening. If James means what Q suspects, then this has been going on for, well, as long as they’ve known each other.

James does not take a step back. There’s something in his stance, however, almost too relaxed and hands back in his pockets, which seems a little too casual to trust in a Double O. “I’ve heard a few things. Apparently the negotiations broke down after I left.”

Q remembers the sheer gut-churning horror of watching Bond’s body hit the floor. “MI6 desensitisation training really is a marvel.”

“You’re angry at me because your father killed me?”

“I’m angry because you fucking knew it was going to happen! You don’t care what it did to me, you just care that you got some sort of overdramatic last kiss without having to explain yourself and now you get to stay down here, and I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t think anything explodes down here.” Q runs a hand through his hair, pulling at the strands through habit, and adds, “Ever.”

Genuine amusement. Vesper and Bond really do have some annoying similarities, he now realises, when it comes to Q apparently providing entertainment. “Stop bloody grinning,” Q snaps.

“Can’t help it, when you sound like yourself.”

“Imagine that. I sound like myself. What an astounding revelation.” Bond purses his lips, and doesn’t pursue the point. “I presume you’ve heard about the deal by now? Where you can go back, if you want?” Feeling very tired indeed, Q states, “Except you don’t want to, do you? This,” he holds his arms out to indicate the endless grey landscape all around them – a landscape, he realises as he does so, which bears an uncanny similarity to your average Scottish moor – “this was all a waste of time.” The kind of landscape where you might erect a stately home and then, possibly centuries later, leave it to burn. “Legends don’t really have this part, do they? It’s the living who are supposed to get it all wrong, condemning their loved ones to an eternity in the afterlife.” The word slips out. He hopes in vain James didn’t spot it. “I never once heard about a ghost too stubborn to take an opportunity when he sees one.”

Shoving his hands moodily into his pockets, he kicks a stone he’s fairly certain wasn’t there before and watches it skitter along the bank out of the corner of his eye – scraggly grass all along, save for a few patches where a darker grey suggests heather. He feels cynical and he feels like he should be exhausted, for all that there’s something pulsing inside him from the river.

Softly he hears Bond says, “Boothroyd,” and Q blinks at him in surprise, “M, Vesper. You met all of them. I knew them when they were all alive, and if I wasn’t there for your Q, I saw the others die.”

 _Your Q._ It makes his assumed name sit heavy, ill-fitting, all of a sudden. The Quartermaster, it’s just a title, after all. Just like 007. “Is this sentimentalism is your old age, James?” If Bond is finally offering him something, even it’s just some sort of pity, it gives him something to cling on to.

“I’m not that old.” James almost seems offended. Q remains eternally surprised by that sense of humour, for all that he tends to be on the receiving end. Presumably he forgot after roaming the ways of the Underworld. He hates the very possibility of that. “You don’t have to be. ‘Old’ doesn’t mean the same for us. ‘Tired’ might be something closer.”

Q screws up his face, perplexed. “I don’t think death’s very good for you, James. You sound positively melancholy.”

“For someone supposed to be the Quartermaster, you’re not that good at listening.”

To say that it stings would be an understatement. To say that it feels like Bond just stabbed in the chest might be overdramatic and also provokes some fairly awful flashbacks, but it’s definitely more accurate. For a moment he thinks he’s about to throw up, until he remembers he hasn’t eaten anything lately to come back up. Stuttering for all that he doesn’t want to show anything, he says, “I wasn’t aware you were saying anything that makes sense.”

“Hence the ‘not listening’ part.”

Q barely restrains himself from flaring up. No, that’s why their conversations never go anywhere. Pressing his fingers together as if in prayer and touching his face, he tries to grab hold of that surrender – that resignation – he found in the river. “Okay,” he says quietly, reasonably, “so tell me what I’m missing. Because none of this makes sense to me.”

Bond looks perplexed himself. So good to know it’s spreading. “Do you realise you sound like that?”

“Calm? You should try it some time.”

“I’ve heard you ‘calm’. This is different. What did you do to yourself?”

“Please don’t try to change the subject by calling me an idiot again, because I assure you, this could very easily descend into name-calling and hair-pulling and that’s the opposite of where I wanted this conversation to go.”

“Which is?”

Few things are more frustrating than Bond acting deliberately obtuse. Obliviousness doesn’t sit well on those shoulders. “Where I want you to come back, with me. You just follow me, and so long as I don’t look back, you can come home. How hard can that be?”

Bond critiques, “You’ve never had to let yourself be tailed before, have you?” as if he doesn’t already know the answer.

“James…”

“Stop using my name like it’s a bloody weapon. You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Is there a reason why you always have to make it so difficult? And,” he goes on, when Bond opens his mouth to no doubt make yet another quip, “before you comment on the nature of field agents or something like that, _you know what I mean_. I don’t care if you’re trained not to give up information. You can tell me. I’m not just your Quartermaster, you know.”

A line forms between James’ eyebrows as he considers the claim. Unfortunately, he doesn’t look impressed, and for the first time Q finds himself pondering the possibility that he might not actually manage this. Not because he failed in the walk back – something he deliberately avoids thinking about – but because he never even convinced Bond to follow him. He couldn’t even manage that.

Never mind that Bond is determined not to anyway. Going back without him doesn’t appeal at all. He imagines having to explain to Eve, fuck, to M – Mallory, the current M – inventing some elaborate lie about losing 007 on some secret mission, and Eve might help him but then again she might never forgive him. Obviously she won’t say as much; she won’t need to. 

Some of this might show on his face. Bond might notice it, and file it away, and take pity (fuck, he hopes not, the last thing Q has ever wanted is anybody’s pity). Regardless, he says softly, “Imagine you’ve been doing this as long as I have, and every mission is the same. Then imagine you’re given an out: everybody thinks you’re dead. You can do whatever you want. You don’t have to go back, and you never have to take another order, or anything else.” If Q could breathe, he fancies he might stop here. “It’s not what you thought it’d be like, because you never put any real thought into it. You just joked about it, because no one in your line of work ever lives until retirement.

“Except you kept living. You can’t complain about it, but it just keeps going. You realise you’re not trained for anything else, don’t want anything else. All too soon, every single day follows the same routine, and that’s the last thing you ever wanted.”

He hesitates, and Q offers, “Until you get an excuse to go back?”

“Until you think they need you enough.”

Bond’s not saying it, not outright. Possibly that betrays a little too much faith in Q’s people skills. After all, he’d be the first to admit they’re not his forte. However, when Bond stops, for all the world as if he has no idea how to go on (for all the world as if talking about himself, about his _feelings_ , is so anathema that he had to shift the whole thing into second person to even begin to approach the problem), in that negative space, the facts start to align. They don’t form a picture that makes Q feel better, at ease with the world. If anything, there comes a sinking sensation, as if someone reached out and carefully flipped the world over, showing the underside of how others might view the matter.

“You knew you were already on borrowed time,” Q whispers. “You figured, why not make the most of what you had left?” 

“Why not spend it doing something useful rather than drinking to pass the time?”

Q almost lets his eyes slip close, catching himself at the last minute. “And then I gave you forever.”

And there it is: the truth of it, or as close as he’ll ever get when expecting James to just offer himself up, as if anybody ever really knows everything going on in their own head. Q imagines being confronted with eternity, and wonders how long he’d last. Maybe he’d be fine, but then, as James says, he’s been through a lot more. The concept isn’t entirely new – it’s like a more morbid retirement. All the same…

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and he feels it.

“I never thought I’d hear that from you.”

Twat.

Q can’t help but smile – a little sadly, but it’s there. 

James lets what tatters of the moment linger for a little longer, Q refusing to try to analyse whatever that softness in his face might mean, before he announces, “You should go back though.”

As previously stated, the idea of returning alone is barely short of unacceptable. “Oh, ‘Should’ I?”

“Have you seen yourself?”

“You keep bringing this up, James, I’ll have no choice but to be offended.”

Clearly Q’s confusion – with just a touch of derision – is evident, since with a slightly startling hand to the small of Q’s back, Bond guides him over to the water and indicates their reflections. Bond’s is washed-out, wavering; Q’s might be more striking, yet he still recoils slightly. He’d half forgotten about the new clothes, but now he’s confronted by the stark contrast between the black and his own pale skin, turned practically white by it. Without his glasses, his eyes dark and hollow, his skin ethereal through the water, and the silk shirt turning him unusually sophisticated to the casual eye, he looks just like his father. 

When he backs away, it’s embarrassing how much comfort he takes from the confirmation that yes, those bright red Converses are still there.

For the first time, he becomes consciously aware of not breathing. If he had been, he’d be hyperventilating right now. Everything he’s been doing – how did he not notice?

His legs give out, depositing him unceremoniously on the bank. Far more gracefully, James joins him. His touch still doesn’t feel cold, only now Q appreciates that it isn’t that James is somehow ‘better’ as a ghost, somehow more alive because that’s how he lived his life; it’s that Q is a heartbeat away from death himself. Or Death, perhaps.

“I don’t – ” He starts shakily, then stops, because he isn’t sure what exactly he has in mind for that sentence. That he doesn’t understand? Except this has been happening all along, ever since he came down here. He doesn’t want it, he knows that much. He doesn’t know what to do either.

Slightly awkwardly, clearly unfamiliar with comforting that doesn’t involve mission-related manipulation, James’ touch travels up from Q’s hand to his shoulder, a weight that might have been comforting if it weren’t barely a fraction of what should be there. The idea of James as insubstantial as those who faded in and out even as Q watched makes Q swallow, curling up into himself and leaning against whatever of James is still left. The arm encircling him is nice, all the same.

“I hate the idea of leaving you here.”

“Well, I hate the idea you did this to yourself because of me.” James prods at Q’s head. “And you have the nerve to say I’m the reckless one.”

“You’re choosing to fade away into the afterlife,” Q says against his shoulder. “That’s fairly reckless.” James doesn’t immediately respond to that.

Then Q feels an odd pressure against his hair, and realises it’s a kiss. Despite the sadness building, a wave of affection swells. “What you did outside my father’s house,” he murmurs, “that’s still unforgivable. I’m not one of your mission girls, you know.”

“No,” James agrees, an odd note in his voice, “You’re not.”

When Q moves away – not far, just enough to try to see what’s happening – presumably it must free up just that bit too much space, enough that James closes it instantly, and kisses him.

It’s the polar opposite of that overdramatic flash of before. There’s no sparks of light or fireworks or sudden building heat, if only because neither of them are capable of that. Instead, it stretches out and goes on and on, both of them exploring each other thoroughly and hurriedly. Neither has to breathe, and time is decidedly fluid down below, meaning that there is no limit too how long it might go on for. They’ll never know, and they’ll never care.

If it’s decidedly passionless, as far as contrasts go, it’s comfortable, and despite their surroundings, it still feels like home.

Eventually they part, just barely, just enough for James to say, “I want you to breathe for me.”

Q chuckles. “You old romantic.”

“Q,” he says sternly, “this is important. I know what you can do, and I’m sure it’s very impressive – ” Maybe it’s the slight insult inherent in the sarcasm, Q can’t help but respond to it: before Bond can say another word, their surroundings snap into an extremely poor approximation of Q’s flat. (Q likes colour, that’s the thing, colour and apparently living things invading his space, neither of which function down here.) James’ flinch is rather satisfying to watch, if Q says so himself, because even when he tries to act unimpressed Q knows what the first reaction was.

Looking around at the sofa, the coffee table, the pile of unidentified wires sprawled across the floor, James tells him, “Stop showing off.”

“Rich coming from you, James.”

The light smack to his head lacks any real force. “Q. I don’t want you to focus on being his son, I want you to focus on being yourself, and this is the exact opposite of that.”

Q’s smile fades. “I don’t know how I stopped breathing,” he confesses, “so I don’t know how to start again.” It does mean that when Bond’s thumb brushes against his throat, any manner of threat is rather lost from it. It’s more considering than anything else.

“In my experience,” James muses, “you breathe in, and then you breathe out again. Rinse and repeat.” At least Q’s overdramatic inhale gets a chuckle out of him.

“You don’t belong here, Q,” James insists. “Not for a long time yet. Does this look like your home to you?”

Q lets his head fall back onto the sofa. The simple answer is no, it doesn’t. It might be an accurate facsimile, but that’s the best it can be. “Everybody leaves home at some point?”

“Well, that answers the question of whether the lack of oxygen is affecting your mind.” James kneels up over him, pinning him in place. He has that oh-so-familiar look of determination, the light of a man strongly inclined towards fixing things by doing something incredibly stupid.

James’ touch sends a small shiver through him, like a cool wind against his skin. When they find their way together again, James murmurs, “Follow my lead.”

Ridiculous as it feels, this time James regularly pulls away again, short intermittent bursts between which Q obliges him by attempting the rinse and repeat of sucking air in and exhaling again, admittedly with the latter largely swallowed up by a ghost. At first all he can think about is how stupid he feels doing this, an ongoing commentary from the outside observer he can’t turn off; only then, gradually, that observer grows quieter, muted, as the world takes on an oddly hypnotic edge. Everything vanishes into unconscious seven-second measures.

James pauses, and Q chokes.

His chest _burns_. “Inhale,” James tells him, and that sensation passes.

His breath sounds loud in his ears – too loud. There’s no other matching sound, of course, just as the only heartbeat ringing in his ears is his own. “I think I should say thank you?” he tries, taking several runs at it until he manages to control his breathing and talk at the same time. 

“If you’re not sure…” James is smiling at him. There’s a distinctly sad edge to that smile. Q fixes it in his mind anyway; holds onto it.

“You don’t want to stay here, Q.”

“So why do you? I know, I know,” he reassures, “I heard. But that’s just about dying. I know you’ll do that some day anyway but…like this, James? Really?”

“It’s not what I would have preferred. But we don’t always get to choose.”

Q whispers, “So let me give you that choice.”

Unusually, James looks away, for all the world as if the infamous 007 experiences doubt. Q waits, because that’s all he can do, really.

“Take us back.”

Instantly Q’s flat vanishes, and they’re standing once more on the moor. They must have moved around in the meantime, because now, just over James’ shoulder, Q spots the crumbling remains of a once-grand mansion not so far away. “James,” he starts, but flinches when he reaches out to touch him and his skin is ice-cold. An odd ripple disturbs the ghost-flesh, and just for a moment, James disappears entirely.

The horror turns Q’s stomach, and it’s all he can do to stay where he is, to stand fixed and not to run to the river to vomit up whatever scraps remain. James clearly considers saying something – possibly kissing him again, that seems to have devolved into his strategy – his own hand frozen halfway between them. Slowly, he lets it fall back to his side.

James jerks his head to the side. “Go.”

“But I – ”

“ _Q_ ,” James snarls, “get out of here.”

More than the shock of the touch – the shattering of a possible reality, the two of them so suddenly rushing apart and to their respective ends of the mortality binary – those words make Q recoil. Not detached enough to be an outright dismissal, closer to an attack, and he doesn’t know why.

He starts to question it; starts to argue back; then he closes his mouth again and nods.

Lost for any sort of appropriate goodbye, he swallows and offers, as if old middle-class chums reunited over crumpets rather than whatever the reality might be, “It was good to see you again, James.”

Nodding again, he fixes that last sight of James in his mind – washed-out, grey, dead and fading – and, finally, turns away from him, to follow the line of the Styx until it leads him home.

\----------

The only thing worse than the sense of being followed is not being able to check.

It starts off with an itch on the back of Q’s neck, akin to realising you’re being watched. Discomfort spreads, the squirming sensation crawling down his spine, an imagined tracery of an imagined gaze, your nerves pricking like thorns. The paranoia grows, deep down in his mind and reaching out tendrils. Humans aren’t made to be tailed. They’re made to run. Walk a path with a stranger behind you, or even a friend, and it won’t be long before you just have to _see_. 

The slightest of sounds makes him startle. As much as he’s focusing on the road ahead, he’s listening out for a single sign that he isn’t alone. He can’t help it. He’s only human.

When he tries not to think about it, awareness grows of a steady ache in his stomach. Time is fluid here, untraceable, but through experience alone he knows that the last thing he ate was shortly after meeting Boothroyd, before losing his pack. The tiny scraping at his throat – a single fingernail on the inside – reminds him of the lost water, and when he doesn’t consider what may or may not walk behind him, he wonders if he might have left it all too late anyway.

Within what might be a few minutes – what does Q know, hours might have passed already, time means nothing – the temptation starts growing. The urge to look back and just check. Just one glance won’t hurt, quick as can be, how do you know he’s there, how can you trust – 

Fortunately, that last is enough to steel his resolve. 

The path slopes up a hillside. Up ahead he can see a tunnel, and he knows, as surely as he thinks over and over about a shortcut back to the station, that that his destination. He assures himself of this, even as he grows closer and it looms before him. Less a tunnel and more an opening into an empty darkness. Despite his resolve, he comes to a halt, the human in him crying out not to be forced inside.

Within, small sparks flash and vanish, like those when you close your eyes too tightly. He sees them despite any real light dying away long ago down here, and instinctively distrusts them.

Echoes behind him; echoes in the dark of the unknown. Echoes of something real, not just imagined: a faint tumble of pebbles down the hillside, stirred by a solid foot.

Q forces a smile, not moving his head so much as a centimetre. “Rather childish tactics, don’t you think?”

A sigh – “who’s being a child here?” – and then his father steps firmly into view, blocking the way. 

“You were waiting for me.”

“It gets worse after this, Dorian. Whatever you’ve felt so far,” Thanatos gestures towards the dark entrance, “it’s nothing compared to what’s waiting for you.”

“What do you suggest?”

Perhaps it’s Q’s fanciful imagination – the one which, so long ago, might have dreamt this entire place up – but he thinks Thanatos hesitates. 

“You could survive this. There would be no trouble at all.” From behind him, he produces something in his enclosed fist. Slowly, he holds it up before Q’s eyes.

Q catches glimpses of soft red flesh in the gaps between those long, spindly fingers, so very like his. Before Thanatos unfurls them, he already knows what he’ll see.

But it turns out there’s a difference between knowing what’s there, and actually seeing the pomegranate lying so innocently in his father’s palm.

The sight knocks the air out of him – the precious air he only just relearnt. “You said you’re not Hades.”

“It’s the symbol which matters, Dorian. You knew that instinctively: precedent carries power.”

 _And I know what I’m saying yes to._ “Wouldn’t it defeat the point if I did?”

“The point of what? Proving yourself right? Covering for a mistake? Risking what little time is your own for one for whom it has already run out?”

Thanatos looks bewildered by the picture he paints. There’s certainly little sign of the detached façade of before, the arrogance or the amusement. Instead he almost seems in pain. Q can’t imagine that the not-knowing causes him that much torment – he can relate, as much as he doesn’t want to, so he can speak from experience that this deviates too much – so there must be something else to it, he realises.

“I’m not eating it.” He doesn’t even know for sure what it would mean. The symbol’s what matters.

“ _Look_ at it!” The pomegranate is thrust before him; there’s a surge of sensation enough to knock him to the ground. The wave of sweet scent he expects, for all that it remains so overpowering, instantly mouthwatering; it’s the red, though, the red tinged with yellow so bright it burns into his eyes. It looks so very real, and that word takes on such new importance down in the malleable Underworld. Little wonder ghosts flock to him, if he burns anything like this. “Are you truly saying that you don’t want it? That you don’t wonder what it tastes like?”

As with words, so in mind: the instant Thanatos plants the concept, Q knows what it would taste like, can taste it already ( _heaven_ ) ( _Elysium_ ) ( _home_ ), rich and divine but thirst-quenching also. He’s heard the phrase _fills your vision_ ; never appreciated what it meant until now. He can’t see anything else because nothing else matters.

He doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything this much.

From far away, he hears, “You just have to take it.”

It’d be so easy.

“Why are you doing this to yourself?”

_Why am I?_

Because this isn’t right. Because James is worth it, and could well be watching this (could be standing right behind him, arm outstretched, wanting to stop it but as utterly and thoroughly incapable and unnoticed as any of the dead). Because even if the bastard isn’t following him, preferring to fade away as is his due, he wouldn’t want Q to do this.

“If you can’t figure that out,” Q meets his father’s eyes, dismissing the pomegranate, “then you don’t know me at all.”

“I offer you charity.”

“You offer me entrapment.”

Thanatos’ face sets in stone. He releases his grip, fanning his fingers as if ushering the pomegranate onwards; it is gone before it hits the ground.

“I don’t see why you’re in such a hurry. Sooner rather than later, you’ll be back down here again.”

“That’s precisely why. What’s the saying? ‘Life’s too short’?”

“I had expected something more intelligent from you.”

“It doesn’t seem you expected anything except some ignorant idiot to manipulate.” 

There it is again: the god in Thanatos’ face, angered once more by Q’s inability to apply tact when he doesn’t see why he should. The kind of trait which confines him to Q Branch in lieu of some of the more interactive areas of MI6. Which reminds him: “You take too much credit for me, you know. You haven’t been there, so you don’t get to decide what parts of me are thanks to you. I might give you my inclinations, but what I’ve done with them, that’s always been me.”

The storm gathers; it does not break. Thanatos visibly fights it down. “So I’ve observed. This is not your world yet, though.”

Q frowns, trying to place the tone. “You’re,” he can’t quite believe it himself, “scared for me?”

“I know death, Dorian. You have walked my paths and taken on my burden, but barely for one breath of the world. You do not yet comprehend everything.”

“Don’t patronise me.”

“I’m not.” Thanatos smiles, and after searching around, Q abruptly realises that the adjective he’s looking for is ‘proud’. “I give an invitation to all of my children, few in number as they might be. A few have come, to beg for this or that favour, for another life or an early death, always for themselves. You are the first who has been…different. Let us say that for once, I might see the appeal.

“Incidentally,” Thanatos adds conversationally, “Do you actually know what you did? Have you realised yet?”

Q frowns. “I…made Bond immortal. By accident. I thought we’d covered that?”

Thanatos’ mouth twitches. “That’s not quite true. What were your exact words to him?”

For a moment Q considers lying. _I don’t remember,_ he tests in his mind, and if he can’t lie to himself then he doesn’t fancy his chances against a god. “I said he didn’t have my permission to die.” He has to remind himself that blushing is actually a good sign.

“Precisely. You assumed responsibility for his mortality. He could not die unless you permitted it – a state of affairs you fixed when you formally passed that responsibility back to me.”

“When you killed him.”

“The only way to ‘fix’ immortality, Dorian, is to die. In taking on direct responsibility, you made it so that he needed a decision to do so.”

“Isn’t it your decision anyway?”

Thanatos smiles. “I can choose to be present,” he allows, “but the world spins on its own. I am not the instigator; I am an overseer. Should anything go wrong, or should a problem arise, I am the one called.” He inclines his head. “I’m sure you can appreciate the position.”

Q feels a little light-headed, yet the comeback remains the same. “I’m not you.”

“Believe me – if you’ll excuse my choice of words – I am now well aware of the fact. So I ask you, now that you are fully aware of as much of it as matters: do you want that responsibility back?”

Q’s eyebrows pinch together. “I’d still have to let him die some day.”

“Correct,” Thanatos agrees. “That was always the case, even if you didn’t realise it. In fact, from what I can tell, that was already your job.”

Q’s horrified to find himself seriously considering it. It would remove the random factor, and there’s the reassurance, the knowledge that his father can’t intervene should he even want to, knowing that Q is the one in control and –

“No.”

“Care to explain?” Thanatos seems genuinely interested in the answer. Q has the unsettling revelation that he is no longer a small child, or an irksome pest, but someone in some way _worthy_ of attention. Before, he might have swelled, or taken it as his due, or alternatively shrunk back away from the unexpected spotlight; now, though, more than anything, he realises how childish all those reactions truly are. In the end, it’s something to be accepted.

So he replies, with no quiver or pride in his voice as he states the facts, “Bond’s entire life has been about other people taking control, telling him what to do. It works for him, and despite how much he rails against it he wouldn’t be much of an agent if it didn’t, but…” _And I gave you forever_. “There should be something, even he doesn’t control it himself, that isn’t in another person’s hands. He deserves that much.”

Thanatos’ eyes remain fixed on his own. Q doesn’t expect anything less, yet he watches closely regardless, in case there’s that one flicker to behind him, to somebody standing right there (although if Bond is there, he’s unlikely to let such statements pass by later).

Finally, Thanatos’ smile spreads into something unmistakeable for anything else. “As I said: you are the first of my children who could very well be more.”

Closure or not, Q can’t quite stop the twitch of annoyance. They can have their nice little father-son bonding over mystical powers, but his father is still horrendously presumptuous in precisely the way that Q hates, irksome enough that even if given the option, he wouldn’t have stopped what comes out of his mouth next. “I want you to visit my mother,” he says, before rolling his eyes at the twitch of his father’s expression and adding, “Not like that. I want you to talk to each other. Especially if I’ve somehow impressed you enough to be worthy of your attention.” 

He can deal with male authority figures whose smiles vanish as if they never existed and for whom metaphorical clouds gather to circle their anger. Moving into the literal makes little difference. This was – is – what made Boothroyd enough of a novelty to catch his attention and keep in MI6, just long enough to realise that this is where he should be.

A fraction of a second later, Thanatos throws his skull-lit head back and laughs.

Death’s laugh is unnerving, crackling, fingernails on your spine, spiders on your neck. It is nothing you want to hear or feel or think ever again. Q can deal with this as well, for all that he flinches backwards.

Thanatos bears his teeth, and this time, it’s a grin. “’Til next time, then. 

“Q.”

For the last time, his father fades away into nothingness, leaving nothing but the gaping hole of the tunnel behind.

\----------

Q takes one deep breath; a second for good measure. The oxygen remains novel, and filling his lungs centres him in the wonderful feeling of being alive. To an extent.

Then, ignoring what a fantastically bad idea it is and how much he’s going to regret this in less than a minute, he lets himself collapse to the ground.

He knows that really he has to keep moving; that turning back isn’t an option, that going forward is all there is; that sitting here just means his clock is ticking on, and time is potentially running out, and everything else besides.

It’s just…

He just needs a moment.

“James,” he says to the darkness, feeling more than a little foolish. “I don’t know if you’re there, obviously. You don’t need to say anything if you are – in fact, I’d rather you didn’t.” At least that way he won’t know for sure if he’s alone. “I just – I need to talk _at_ you.”

Q considers the darkness which lies ahead. “I might die doing this, James. I haven’t been eating; I haven’t been sleeping; I haven’t been drinking. I’m not sure if I’ll survive, if I even make it home.

“That doesn’t mean I regret a moment of it. I’d do it all again, in a heartbeat, and if that sounds ridiculous then I hope you can at least appreciate that we don’t always behave that rationally when it comes to people we love.” The word sounds easier this time, no longer tasting bitter. The forbidden edge to it reminds him of the pomegranate. 

“I also want you to know that if I’ve been saying all this to myself, then, well, you’re fired. Or something.”

With that, he heaves himself to his feet – aware now of every bone in his body, of the sheer weight of it all, vaguely jealous of the ethereal ghosts no longer weighed down by all of this – and, before he can think twice or turn back to answer whether that flush creeping up his neck is justified, he enters the tunnel.

\----------

Inside, the tunnel actually opens out into a vast cavern, walls soaring up until they reach the vanishing point. Darkness envelops everything – honestly a welcome change from the omnipresent grey of the outside – yet that doesn’t hamper Q’s vision at all. He thinks he might have been able to see anyway, but if not, those sparks of light alight here and there like fireflies, turning the world eerie and strange. In a few places – atop an outcropping, by Q’s feet – they clump together, like luminous moss. Some fly together in a sheet before him, creating the disorienting illusion of light on water. They care little when he tries to bat them out of the way.

To his left, a crevasse opens up, a sheer drop which may well never stop. Certainly when Q experimentally kicks a stone in, he never hears it land. Occasionally the lights following his feet and pulling slightly ahead will suddenly deviate, flinging themselves down into the depths. Presumably they intend him to follow, and after a while Q’s eyes begin to droop and he almost does.

He can’t help it. As the path stretches out ahead of him, sometimes wide and sometimes thinning to a single person’s width and always twisting and turning so that he can’t see how long it goes on, for the first time since the Acheron line he feels tired: proper, bone-deep tiredness, the sort brought on by jetlag and all-nighters when you’ve been fighting your body so long it resorts to fighting dirty. When the path hugs the wall, he leans into it, longing just to stop and rest his eyes. He can’t, though: here, the path sits at an angle, and the moment he gives in he knows, he just _knows_ , he’ll fall in and never stop. In his dazed mind, he can feel that primeval urge to just jump, as simple and basic as _turn around, it won’t matter, even if you trust James you can’t trust Death_.

His support disappears suddenly and he fall forwards, scraping his hands and knees as he scrambles for a hold on the floor, anything to stop him plummeting into that abyss.

When his heart rate settles once more, he realises that just ahead, the crevasse peters out as the cavern coalesces into a perfectly round tunnel.

Standing gets harder every time. He’s tempted to blame gravity.

As he enters, he’s struck by the wafting smell of peaches and apples, of strawberries and oranges and, yes, pomegranates. Here and there, growing out of the very rock, hang bunches of fruits, almost too high to reach but not quite. They’re fairly small at first, but as he continues they grow larger, more luscious, more mouth-watering. At the same time he feels a wrench in his stomach, as of something giving way, and the hunger finally hits him.

It’s enough to make him collapse against the wall, a few inches from a bunch of impossibly green grapes (the colours are back, here if nowhere else; he should be glad; he can’t be glad), arm wrapped around his middle. It feels like he’s been cut open; like something’s eating away at him, ripping out fat chunks to sustain itself. Recognising symptoms does not do anything to make them go away. If anything, it makes them worse.

The food’s so close. One bite and this could stop.

He closes his eyes – sways a little on his feet as sleep tries to reclaim him – and stumbles on through the pain.

And maybe he did know beforehand, but now understanding truly dawns that no, he could really die, down here in the dark. He might not make it back, he might not see Eve or his mum again, all because of Bond and maybe – as ridiculous as it sounds – this is when it actually properly finally sinks in that not only is this very much beyond the Quartermaster’s duties, but those were never even a factor. Funny how you don’t really understand what it is to die for a person until you’re barely minutes away from the reality.

When the sound of water matches the scratching in Q’s throat, he lets out a low, helpless moan.

Endlessly he revises his estimate of how many days, or weeks, have passed since they descended again, as his body remembers what it is to be alive. Pangs you couldn’t earn in a single week claw mercilessly at him; he opens his mouth to fill the air with some other sound but only a harsh rattle of a voice emerges. Lights swirl around him, the same tricks as before still shimmering like mist and fog or the misfirings of his brain, he doesn’t know. All the while the temptations grow around him, and he doesn’t blame Thanatos for them. Q realises that sometimes, the Underworld follows its own rules, and after all, Thanatos is not Hades.

Truthfully, when he sees the dull grey light up ahead, he dismisses it as a hallucination.

It isn’t until he trips into the station, barely catching himself against an unforgiving metal bench, that he realises it’s real. As far as real matters.

He misses the arrival of the train. He’s too busy retching, with nothing to throw up but his stomach giving it a very good try anyway.

Unsticking his eyes, he stares blearily at the train, brain so slow to process everything. The heat of his skin should be nice in its novelty. Instead he burns.

The train waits patiently for him to struggle onboard, and he can’t even acknowledge what’s so strange about that. Instead forces himself along the length of the carriage to the next door before collapsing on the seat with his forehead resting against the clear plastic, just in case James is still behind him and Q is thrown around by mistake.

He lets his eyes fall closed.

He lets the train take him away.

\---------

He’s woken by the jerk of the brakes, knocking his head against the plastic. He loses time to speculating on just how dirty it is, until the penny finally drops that it’s not the plastic at fault, it’s his eyes. Everything around him has vanished into the blur within which he’s lived most of his life.

His glasses were in Bond’s pocket.

Dreamily he considers looking back. He wouldn’t see anything anyway.

The train exhales around him and a memory stirs. Lifting one foot onto the seat – so much harder than it’s ever been, he’s still so tired and the movement disturbs his protective curl, setting loose the agony in his stomach – he mindlessly claws at the laces of his shoes and croaks unintelligible curses against whoever designed Converses to never ever come off easily.

Finally he shoves it to the floor, the ticket clasped in his hand, and he falls out onto North End station.

Not enough; not yet. He coughs against the filthy stone pressed against his cheek, cold and unwelcoming, and it’s all he can do not to give up, to stop and sleep here. Just let it all go away.

_James._

Slowly, agonisingly, he forces his body forwards, crawling like a baby because there’s no way his legs could possibly hold him now. The ticket barrier is impossibly far away, yet he pushes himself on.

Something presses painfully against his side; dimly he remembers the distress beacon; fumbles around in his pocket; extracts it only to drop it. He watches it bounce along the floor beneath the barrier and thinks, _Well, at least that made it through._

Grasping at the barrier, he pulls himself up, gasping with the effort. He fumbles the ticket; manages to push it home on his knees with what last burst of energy he can muster; falls forward through the barrier, pathetically trying to claw forward because he has no idea how far over counts as ‘through’. 

The beacon flashes its tiny light, so very far away. Q can’t get to it, he knows. He’s done. Eve can’t save him if she can’t find him, and James, well, James could be anywhere, couldn’t he?

A last breath expires from his parched lips, as the station swims around him, and he himself falls.


	3. Part III: The Only Place That Matters

It begins with the dream; then the groggy awareness that the dream is just a dream, and you are waking up now.

The darkness fades, resolving into muted red, light shining beyond your eyelids. You don’t lift them just yet though. First the rest of your senses return: the soft cotton of sheets beneath your fingers; the unpleasant taste of long sleep and no toothpaste; the sounds of regularly beeping machines and far-away footsteps; the unmistakeable antiseptic smell of a hospital.

Slowly, Q’s eyes flutter open.

Overhead lies nothing but white. Hospital ceilings aren’t really designed for interest, only for something functional yet soothing. Instinctively he wants to scribble over it. His arms are slow to respond though, and after all, the ceiling is so far away. He sighs, shifting slightly, flexing his fingers to experience the reassurance that they’re there, the same with his toes. The world is drowsy, possibly drug-softened, definitely in need of artificial focus. When he manages to turn his head to the right, he finds his glasses at the ready. They feel oddly heavy as they settle on his nose, but he’s distracted by the window’s view of what is and always shall be undeniably London. Big Ben looks inserted by CGI, it looks so perfect. Crying at his city would be unbelievably stupid, so Q swallows back the lump in his throat and just watches.

“You look like death.”

Q’s head snaps around.

Sitting – no, why just sit when there are so many adjectives for you to hoard, so great an impression to be made by your own arrogant existence – _lounging_ in the chair by his bed, wearing both his trademark suit and his trademark smirk, James Bond meets his eyes with what to the inexperienced might seem like simple amusement.

However, if there is one thing Q can say that he has gained from this entire mess, it is experience.

James isn’t happy. There’s still too much in his life for him to be truly happy. But there’s still a life there, still drink and guns and girls, still Q in a hospital bed to be mocked, still England, and if he isn’t happy, he’s at least content.

The word doesn’t sit well in Q’s head at first: _content_. Not because it’s inaccurate, but because to apply such a word to Bond feels instinctively as if it should be a mistake. There’s a mild softening around the edges, a hint of genuine warmth in the smile, a spark in the eyes doesn’t seem so faked, some hint of taking pleasure in something other than death or sex. (Q wonders if he’s excluded from either of the two.) The performance is second-nature, but perhaps for the first time in a while there’s a trace of something genuine lying beneath the surface. Something gloriously alive.

Q says, “I can’t believe you actually went for that line.”

“Then you obviously don’t know me as well as you think.”

Truth be told, Q now knows James far better than he ever might have liked. He wonders whether James is aware of that and playing the part regardless; wonders just what James remembers.

The questions itch in his mind, on his tongue, but he can’t; he won’t. (Not yet.)

“What happened?”

“I saved you,” James informs him, with considerable relish. “I activated the beacon, and carried you until I ran into Eve. It wasn’t all that far, actually.” He pauses, a pause instead of commenting on that first long walk, losing their way on purpose. James says nothing about it. “Congratulations, by the way. Simultaneous exhaustion, starvation and dehydration. The doctors want to know what you’ve been doing for the last month.”

“A month?” Q exclaims. James nods.

“I told them it was classified.” 

Weakly, Q comments, “I just bet you did.” It’s hard not to drink in the sight of him, all the colours restored, all that _life_. The ghost of him already seems like a nightmare. All of it does, here, so close to London’s sunlight.

“You can have this back, by the way.” James holds up a thick rectangle of a book, then deposits it in Q’s lap. Q stares at the curling corners, the tea stained spine, the cracked and faded image of the Grey Wizard bustling down a dirt track reminiscent of the English countryside. 

Ignoring the IV as the hindrance it is, he carefully, reverently thumbs through the pages. The tear on page 84, the places where it falls open if he leaves it… “How?” The last time he saw this, it was in the backpack swallowed up whole by the darkness.

“If I had to guess, I’d say a present.” Dismissing Q’s disbelief, James confesses, “I gave up during the appendices, I’m afraid.” 

Q struggles to recall where James had been before. How long has he been out? “It’s okay,” he says faintly, as if from a very long way away. “Most people do.”

He doesn’t last for long. Obligingly Bond prepares him for what questions he might receive, with regard to the official explanations and the rumours at large, until Q’s eyes start to droop and sleep takes him again.

A kiss brushes against his forehead. He doesn’t know where waking ends and dreaming begins.

\-------------

“You’re not okay, are you?”

To be fair to her, Eve did observe a good number of the formalities first – bringing flowers, offering to smuggle in takeaway, the usual. It’s just that this is the first thing she says which isn’t by the book, and is uttered whilst looking him right in the eye. In other words, it’s clearly the first thing that actually matters.

“I almost starved to death,” he points out, “I doubt anybody would think otherwise.”  
“Not that,” she says irritably, flapping her hand to dismiss his brush with death. Being a field agent does that to you, he’s noticed, and it’s the kind of thing that sticks. “I mean up here,” she clarifies, reaching out to tap elegantly crafted nails against his forehead.

There had been a debriefing, of course, from both sides. Needless to say, Q Branch have been asking a great deal of questions, and performing a great deal of illegal hacking. Q feels a great swell of pride for his department. It means a lot when the head of MI6 has to go down there to threaten them all personally. Through much negotiation – and Q fears to ask what sort of things had to be promised, how long Eve had to fight for him – apparently his ‘unique status’ (“It’s not like they want to talk about it any more than you do,” Eve confides) will remain a state secret, for no-one’s eyes but those with the highest clearance. Apparently, the introduction of gods onto the playing field will only upset things. Better to keep Q where they can see him, should any relevant occasions arise. In that conclusion, Q can practically smell M, and he never thought he’d be so grateful for a leader so inured to politics.

Now, he asks, “Do you think it’s possible to come back without leaving a bit of yourself behind?”

“You’re not talking about Bond, are you?”

“He wanted me to stay.” Q doesn’t specify who. “I wasn’t really tempted then, but now I’m not so sure I didn’t say yes without realising. The world doesn’t seem right: greyer, like – like _down there_. Something’s itching right beneath my skin and the light’s too bright and I keep thinking that I don’t belong here anymore.”

Eve gives this some thought; then whaps him around the head, with great affection. “Of course you belong here,” she assures him, seemingly friendly but with the hard edge of steel beneath.

It’s not a real conclusion, but for now, he lets it go. For her.

\----------

James isn’t as prone to seizing opportunities as you might think. At least, that’s one way of interpreting what happens next. The other is that Bond is very prone indeed to running away, often, and at length.

Q’s recovery from almost dying is slow and annoying and _boring_ and largely defined by the distinct absence of a certain agent. Admittedly that’s not entirely due to James skulking around everywhere that isn’t, well, there. They both still have these things loosely described as ‘jobs’ and Q is the only one of them with sufficient physical symptoms to be ordered home (not that he’s in much of a state to do more than crawl in, and Eve is on the prowl in any case). In fact, if anything James’ better adjusted emotionally than he has been since he started working as a professional assassin, even if there’s no official psych eval to establish that in writing.

All the same, when he’s glaring at the ceiling and twitching because Eve won’t even give him a fucking computer, just books (not even on a Kindle, he has yet to hack into MI6 with paper), Q finds it very easy to resent him.

The day he’s finally released stands out as one of the best of his life. Obviously Q Branch knew he was coming, and Q’s more than a little touched by the horrendously bright streamers and cheap _Doctor Who_ banners and the party hats Jez forces onto anyone foolish enough to wander into their midst. Gerty ceremoniously leads him to the computer wired in at the front of the room; Katy, beaming broadly, presents him with a mug of Earl Grey. 

After she’s walked away, Q finds that she also slipped a schematic for what looks like a very economical device indeed for inserting explosives inside an everyday Biro.

He’s home.

\----------

His house is too quiet. Eve agreed to feed the cats, yet apparently many felt so betrayed by his absence that they resigned themselves to cutting him out of their daily or weekly rounds. 

Heidegger, of all of them, is there waiting for him when he tries to open the door. There really is something a little supernatural about that cat.

When they start to return, in dribs and drabs, it’s much like the first time he walks through Hyde Park: as pleased as he is to see them, he can’t help but wonder why they’re here. (He hasn’t braved the Tube once, since getting back. Thankfully, at the moment it’s still warm enough to walk.)

Worse is when he realises, a couple of weeks later, why the flat still doesn’t feel like home. It takes Stelmaria’s levelled glare through his window for the penny to drop.

“I don’t miss having a home invader,” he informs her, after deactivating the lasers long enough for her to enter. “His habit of watching me sleep was deeply creepy and nobody can tell me otherwise.”

Stelmaria swans off haughtily into the kitchen, tail erect. It’s at this point that he admits to himself that his need to lie to himself has extended to attempting defences around cats, and this is always a danger sign.

Elsewhere he walks the streets of London in the sunlight; feeds the crows on the roof of HQ; visits the Tower of London and listens to the panic when the ravens try to follow him home. Here and there, he seeks out something of a settling. 

Eventually, he admits that no settling will present itself without at least the facsimile of an ending.

\----------

It doesn’t really matter where Bond goes in London; it never has. Q is never short of eyes to find him. There is, he accepts now, an equal amount of creepiness between them. That’s what the world of espionage does to you, ignoring all the rest.

Bond answers the invitation, after just long enough to make it clear that he does not wait at Q’s beck and call. When Q opens the door to him, he is painfully wary, all that contentment of earlier withdrawn in suspicion and foreboding. Q pours him a glass of proper scotch and makes a cup of tea for himself, and all the while James says nothing.

“I’m impressed,” he comments from the kitchen, deliberately keeping it casual. “Most people would have turned at run at the words ‘we need to talk’.”

“I’m not most people,” comes the reply, and Q can’t help but smile to himself and murmur, “No, you’re not, are you?”

Stelmaria has resumed her throne on James’ lap, purring contentedly under his attention. “She missed you,” Q tells him, setting the glasses down on the table. “I was surprised she even came back.”

He hadn’t meant to introduce the subject in that manner. However, from the way James’ hand stills, avoiding it will mean avoiding it forever.

“I’m just saying, 007,” he says all in a rush, all exasperated forced calm, deriving nothing but savage enjoyment from seeing Bond flinch at the reversion to number, “that first I made you immortal, which you never so much as thanked me for, and then I did everything in my power to make you _not_ immortal, including going to the fucking Underworld, meeting my estranged and unexpectedly mythological father, dragging your soul _back from death, almost starving to death_ – I’m saying that I think I have done an awful lot for you lately.”

“What’s your point?”

Q can feel his eye not so much twitching as full-on vibrating as a small explosion of pure white-hot incoherent rage sweeps over him. “‘ _What’s my point_ ’?” he repeats in a low hiss through gritted teeth. 

“Do you want gratitude?”

“I want to know what the hell you have done for me that makes you think this is anything but one-sided, because I am telling you, 007, I am getting very, very tired of doing all of the work here. At first it was fine – I’m your Quartermaster, it was my fault, all of that – but increasingly I can’t help but reflect that I keep giving and giving and you just take and, again, _I almost died saving you_.”

Bond’s face reveals nothing. He doesn’t want to give anything away, and Q thinks, _That’s the bloody point_. The moment they start edging towards something real, Bond shuts down, content to wait it out. All he ever says is _no_ and there’s only so long you can keep asking.

“I’m not saying we can go back to the start,” Q admits wearily, suddenly feeling very tired, “but if you’re not, well, interested,” might as well say it aloud, or as close to it as he’ll manage, “I can keep it professional – probably still more than you, “ a quirk of a smile that might be involuntary and might be performance, _stop it James it hurts_ , “or I can assign someone else to you. But I am done saving you when you never do anything to help.”

He falls silent; lets his eyes fall shut. Only half of that was a lie, which he reckons is pretty good.

He doesn’t trust himself not to save Bond again. That’s the fucking problem.

Then, finally, Bond gives him a different kind of answer.

“I chose to come back.”

Frowning in bewilderment, Q opens his eyes again and blinks up at Bond. “Sorry?”

Bond is looking at him steadily, in a way that suggests he’s making a point of meeting Q’s eyes, of maintaining contact, of not avoiding anything. “You asked what I did for you. I followed you.

“You didn’t bring me back; I followed you home.”

Q’s mind is usually a wild mess of thoughts and equations, the only respite confused static. This is the first time in oh so long that all of it – all the noise, all the thoughts, all the facts and theories and idle curiosities – it all just stops. For a moment, or possibly two, he isn’t thinking anything at all.

“Idiot.”

It’s only after those moments that he realises his face is still moving, independent of any conscious input. From the feel of things, it’s twitching through several options, both his eyes and his mouth attempting to express some sort of reaction despite losing contact with the organ usually in charge of such things. 

He looks ridiculous. He knows this because, in spite of making such grand statements and with such an intense focus, it seems Bond can’t help but smile. The tit.

Q can’t help but smile back.

“I hate you,” Q announces, beaming widely.

James’ teeth are stupidly white. “I’m aware of the fact.”

“Absolutely, completely, and utterly.”

“Likewise.”

“Unbelievably, colossally, stupendously.”

“Q…”

“Tremendously, stupefyingly, terrifyingly…”

“Are you alright?”

Q is laughing and looks like a madman. He tries to stifle it with a hand over his own mouth, only muffled giggles sound infinitely worse. It feels like a decidedly crazy kind of happy, with neither reaction possibly being appropriate, yet both feeling so very right.

“Yes, I’m – Sorry, I – What I’m trying – ” 

“Q,” James says slowly, carefully, taking hold of both of Q’s hands like he’s about to do himself an injury, “you sound lost for words. I’ve never heard you sound like this before.”

“Good thing you stuck around,” Q points out. “All these new experiences you would have missed.” He cocks his head on one side and grins up at him. “So, home? This is home, is it? Or MI6? London?”

“I’m not sure it’s safe to answer that question right now. For either of us.”

Q nods. “Don’t worry. I know.” Quite what he knows, he couldn’t actually say. There’s an awful lot bubbling up, and it’ll take some rational headspace to figure it all out. After all, James isn’t the only one who could be answering the question.

So instead he considers talking this out, decides that he deserves something beforehand, and frees himself from Bond’s loose grip to kiss him instead.

No doubt he could eulogise about the taste of Bond’s mouth – this fairly old-fashioned mix of lingering expensive scotch and nicotine and, although this might just be a fanciful notion, the promise of an explosion – but to be honest, what strikes him most is the sensation. Bond’s mouth is burningly hot once more, the way it should be, and especially when it opens to respond and Q fairly purrs in approval, but now this is far less desperate and rushed and Q is always glad to have it proved that it’s worth taking time over things. Not only is Bond’s tongue slow and methodical, but his hands, well, his hands aren’t pulling at his hair anymore but exploring it, drifting down to the back of Q’s neck, where he discovers he’s even more sensitive than he’d previously realised. As for Q, he’s less interested in crumpling Bond’s suit just to make a point and more in doing so as a matter of course. Even being kissed like this, his fingers find it hard to keep still, first trying out a similar basic caressing route before wandering further down, running along the silk of Bond’s tie and tracing the material around each exposed button on that crisp white shirt.

In conclusion, kissing Bond is far better when they’re not in a hurry to consult the god of death and when they’re not both either dead or Other.

Q’s fairly certain, from the thrum of energy underneath his fingertips, that Bond’s pretty much a hair’s breadth away from just throwing him to his living room floor and having him right then and there. It’s precisely why he forces himself to draw back.

A pissed-off Bond is even better when he’s looking decidedly dishevelled and you can claim credit for both states. Q can’t help but grin down at him, wayward hair flopping down across his right eye.

Reaching deep down inside himself for whatever reserves of calm detachment he might have left to calm down his voice and his heart rate for just long enough, he says, “Then again, we should maybe talk about how this is supposed to work.” On second thoughts, perhaps ‘murderous’ is not something to encourage. 

“I just want to make sure, based on your previous record: are you going to resign from MI6?” Q teases. A heartbeat after the words escape, his eyes widen with horror. Why did he have to open his mouth? “I mean – _fuck_ , no, I – ” 

James catches his hand before it can start yanking at his hair as usual. He’s not smiling, but at least he doesn’t look angry, or worse, blank. “I wouldn’t do that to you.

“And, just so we’re quite clear, because you have displayed some rather unexpected possessive tendencies and I wouldn’t want to have to get someone else from Q Branch – ” he presses a kiss soothingly against Q’s hand “ – I am not going to stop sleeping around to complete a mission just because you’re jealous.”

Q closes his mouth from where he had been about to launch into a long, detailed, and primarily angry list of reasons why James being supervised by anybody except for him is the stupidest plan he’s ever heard in his life – really, he’d rather walk away from what they’re teetering on the edge of than do anything of the sort. At least James is looking at him like he understands.

“Well, _obviously_ ,” he says instead. “All I ask – and pay close attention, 007 – ” cliché as it is, he reaches out and pulls at James’ tie to tug him in closer, and the rush of warmth has nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with the fact that James doesn’t fight, just lets him do it “ – all I ask is that you come home afterwards.”

James grins, close enough that Q can feel the curve against his own skin. “You know how I feel about orders,” he murmurs, more a growl than real speech.

Q objects to being carried through into his bedroom. Unfortunately it’s hard to mount a convincing argument when your opponent resorts to underhanded methods like kissing you every time you try.

Finally, as clothing begins to litter the floor – instantly Ada makes a beeline for new bedding – Q manages to kneel up on the bed and tell James (his own fault really for wearing fucking cufflinks), “By the way, I added a subsection of code to the defence parameters here.”

James’ hands still. “If this is dirty talk, I should tell you, you’re out of practice.”

Q grins slyly, undoing the right cufflink with a single flick. He’s a fast learner. “Believe it or not, I actually missed you breaking in at 2am, and I realised the only reason you don’t anymore – besides no doubt delving into angst at length elsewhere – is because you can’t survive the precautions anymore.

“So.” He picks open James’ shirt buttons one by one, careful to maintain eye contact the whole time. “They’ll let you through now.”

“Q,” James says softly, “did you give me a key to your flat?”

“I never said that.”

He likes the way James looks at him then: as if Q is a bloody marvel.

And when Q falls backwards onto the bed, James follows him down.

\-----------

Deep down in the earth, in the tunnels below Britain, there’s a man on a computer. He’s the head of Q Branch; he’s also the son of Death.

Right now, he’s talking home the man who was once immortal – who always has been, in his own way. Once this mission is over, they can get back to the far less professional side of their relationship, where they listen to each other breathe and appreciate the full wonder of it.

Q didn’t mean to do it.

But he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done.
> 
> This is the longest thing I have ever written in my life, and certainly the longest thing I've ever finished. Such a thing could not have been possible without the encouragement and gorgeous art of my two artists, [johanirae> and ](http://johanirae.livejournal.com/514296.html)[allyearefallen](http://allyearefallen/tagged/triffidsandcuckoos). Click on those links if you want to witness the art independent of the fic, which it all most definitely deserves. You two are amazing!
> 
> More to the point, this fic really couldn't have existed without my lovely former-housemate and (hopefully) continuing friend, [flightinflame](http://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/pseuds/flightinflame), who answered such pertinent questions as 'Which Tube station would be most likely to link to the Underworld?' and even read through a very early draft of this full of holes and gaps and no guide to the colour code to help her and yet came back with nothing but love and a few plot holes to patch up. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own. You are a wonderful human being, love.
> 
> And finally, many apologies to, well, everything from which I've borrowed here, including obviously the James Bond franchise, but also the work of Neil Gaiman, Kate Griffin, Marie Phillips (from whose book, _Gods Behaving Badly_ , I shamelessly stole the Tube to the Underworld, and I heartily apologise) and everyone involved with both the film _Labyrinth_ and _Welcome to Night Vale_ , the latter of which finally inspired a title. I own none of the wonderful things listed here, but had immense fun playing with them.
> 
> And to any readers to stumble on this far, my greatest thanks of all.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Illustrations to We are Not Legends Yet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/941011) by [johanirae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/johanirae/pseuds/johanirae)




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